


Deserter

by Tyranidlord



Series: Bloodtide Rising [2]
Category: Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Forgotten Realms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into Vampire, Daedra, Dark Fantasy, Demons, Developing Relationship, Drow, Epic Battles, F/M, Glenvar Castle Mod, Graphic Description, High Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Minor Character Death, No sparkly vampires here, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul Mod, Psychological Trauma, Some Explicit Language, Torture, Vampires, Vampiric cannibalism, Work In Progress, mod content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 211,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyranidlord/pseuds/Tyranidlord
Summary: Kaius Desin has mixed luck. Given a second chance during the Emperor's ill-fated escape attempt from assassins, it is uncertain whether the potential apocalypse, his new vampiric nature, or his Drow companion will kill him first.





	1. Deserter

**Author's Note:**

> Deserter is my way of getting back into writing. It is far from my best work so comments are going be highly appreciated.
> 
> Please note that there is a large amount of divergence from the standard game. This series is based of my (heavily) modded savegame from back in 2009-2010 so while items, quests, etc match mods such as Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and Glenvar Castle there have been changes and updates since then.
> 
> Please leave feedback as I won't know how to improve otherwise! :-)

“Name?”

 “Kaius Treblanus Desin.”

 The sound of scratching was ever present in the tiny confines of the room. It wasn’t loud, but it was persistent enough to set even the most stoic of soul’s teeth on edge. For my part I stood perfectly still, ignoring the fluttering fear in my belly that had been a companion for so long it was almost part of me.

 At the sound and tone of my voice, the source of the scratching glanced up and studied me with experienced eyes. The quill stopped in mid motion, the ink staining the tip threatening to drip down onto the parchment underneath its point.

 The sensation of eyes upon me only last for a few seconds, and I forced myself to remain calm, staring over the head of the seated Centurion as he went about recording my details. The wall behind him allowed me to have an almost infinite source of distractions, as covered with dozens of tiny slate tiles hanging to a mass of hooks on the wall. Each were listed with a name, grouped together in towering columns that covered an area over five metres in width and two metres in height. It was a collection of the damned and condemned.

 Old, grizzled and hair slowly turning grey, the Centurion looked between me and the two towering forms of my captors standing a pace back from my sides. Dressed only in a ruined sackcloth I was indeed out of place between the pair of Legionaries of the Imperial Watch. In their scarlet cloaks and metal plate armours polished to an eye-watering precision, it was almost impossible to make us look even more unalike. The only thing that seemed to link us was the way that all three of us stood rigid, arms locked by our sides and eyes staring resolutely forward.

 Using short, sharp quill strokes he noted down my approximate height and weight onto the parchment, using my guards to assist his estimate. “Crime?”

 The Legionary to my right twitched, holding out another sheet of parchment that the Centurion reached out and took. “Desertion.”

 Again the quill stopped it teeth-grinding progress across the sheet on the wooden desk and the eyes returned. There was nothing in the expression. No hate, no anger or not even disappointment as the eyes roamed over me once more. The gaze eventually came to rest on the Legion Brand scarring my right bicep.

 “Rank and Legion?”

 “Archer-Praefect. 8th Casta, 14th Legion.”

 There was a sigh, but there was some measure of amusement from the man recording my details. Dressed in a simple scarlet toga and bearing signs of years of accumulated injuries it had been his declining years that had put him behind a desk rather than occupying a position in a shield wall. The chair creaked as he pushed it back and turned in place, staring for several minutes at the map on the wall that notated every major Legion posting throughout the bounds of Tamriel.

 “North-western Vvardenfell. Looks like… Fort Ironhand?” He muttered under his breath and shook his head with amazement. “Just how in oblivion’s name did they manage to catch you?”

 Suppressing the urge to shrug I kept my gaze to the wall above and behind his head. I knew exactly what he meant though. As an Archer I was unlike the majority of infantry that made up the Legion’s ranks. I was, or at least _had_ been a forester; one of the highly trained, highly skilled members of a military already famed for its discipline, skill and ability. Where the Legionaries fought in a wall of metal and meat and stabbed and killed with methodical precision; the foresters were the eyes and ears, the dismounted scouts and skirmishers. When the Legion marched through rugged and difficult terrain, the foresters would stalk in front of the cohorts and cover their advance with precise bow fire. During the rare times that the Legion faced an enemy either dumb enough or suicidal enough to face it on open ground, the foresters would form archer-cohorts behind the front line. There, protected in the depths of the formation they would fill the air with clouds of buzzing death. A hail of steel-tipped arrows would shatter and weaken battle lines before the metal-shod boots of the legionaries trampled them into the dirt.

 The foresters were also responsible for assisting the Legions in remaining supplied. Hunting, tracking and trapping would allow the Legions to live off the land to a surprising degree. Such skills had provided immeasurable assistance through centuries of warfare. I knew that the aging veteran noting down my details was surprised at finding himself faced with a forester. Especially one with my rank. For all intents and purposes I should have been able to simply disappear into the wild and never be found.

 A gauntleted hand, the outer portion of the hand and fingers covered with a series of interlocking metal plates reached out and grasped me firmly by the jaw. The metallic edges rubbed at my skin, but the leather gloves under the metal felt strangely cool. “He got bitten by a bloodsucker.” Rumbled the guard to my right.

 The Centurion took a moment to study the healing bite marks in my throat, visible due to the rags that I wore. “He’s not going to turn is he?”

 Clanking softly the guard released his grip on my face and shrugged. Then, thinking better of it he shook his head. “They picked him up at the gates to Balmora. The report we got was that he had stuffed the wounds with Chokeweed and Lichen. It’s almost been a fortnight since they caught him as well.”

 “Good. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on your gods-ordained punishment now would we?”

 “What’s the going rate for deserters at the moment?” Asked the guard to my left.

 “Usually hanging, although Tribune Tarvldyn has had to become more creative due to the recent increase of desertions. It’s either hanging, a beating, or a swim in the Rumare.”

 The feeling of fear grew stronger and I couldn’t help but feel a terrible unease at what awaited me. Two of the punishments were definite death sentences. Hanging was hanging, but a swim in the Rumare was one of the more ancient punishments within the Legion. Although it varied, it was usually as simple as tying the accused in a sack with their hands and feet bound before throwing them in a river or lake with some rocks for company.

 The beating however was potentially worse. It wasn’t completely guaranteed to result in death, but being left to live out the rest of your days as a cripple was the _best_ possible outcome. A squad of legionaries; usually fresh recruits would be chosen to beat the offender for five minutes with nothing more than their hands and feet. Anyone who appeared to be pulling their punches or holding back would receive a flogging as a result. If at the end of the time the accused was still breathing they would be released. In my first years in the Legion I had seen the punishment enacted. It was extremely rare for anyone to live through such an ordeal.

 Leaning over the parchment, the Centurion returned to jotting down more of my details. My rank, unit and posting was added to the sheet that represented little more than an epitaph. I had barely any family or friends outside of the Legion, and so with a death sentence looming in my immediate future I had no doubt to what awaited me. If I was lucky I would have a grave. Maybe.

 The choice of deserting had surprisingly been an easy one. It was not a pleasant place for a legionary to find himself. The northern winds would sweep south from the Sea of Ghosts, biting through even the most solid of furs and coats and making everyone’s lives miserable. The only places that were colder was Solstheim to the north, and some of the postings in northern Skyrim.

 This life hadn’t been improved since we had received our new Legate. One of the 20 commanders of the military might of the Empire, I had been unlucky enough to find myself in the exact fort where he had chosen to reside. Far from the prying eyes of Imperial bureaucrats he had forged a petty little kingdom all for himself. Five hundred legionaries and the dozens of support staff in the fort were his subjects. Fines, floggings and punishment details for the smallest of infractions, or even on a whim ensured that I wasn’t the only one who considered making a run for it. Unlike most of the others, I was one of the few with the skills to make the attempt.

 As dangerous as a course of action desertion was, several years within the northern reaches of Tamriel had left those surviving legionaries such as myself just as dangerous. Patrols into the Ashlands were common, as were the running skirmishes against Ashlander Tribes resisting the armoured gauntlet of Imperial Rule. Other patrols and sorties against bandits were also common, as they were required to secure the supply lines not only for ourselves, but the various Ebony Mines scattered about the region. I had fought supernatural horrors, killed men and mer and seen sights that would’ve quailed the hearts of the obliviously content citizenry of the Empire. I also had the scars to show for it, mostly physical but there were plenty of nights that I was left sweating out the dark hours until dawn. In the rolling hills and plains of the West Gash and in the depths of the Ashlands I had also left several friends and comrades buried in the soil and ash.

 “There’s a request here from Legate Quintillius to hand him over to the jurisdiction of the 14th.”

 The Centurion snorted and didn’t bother looking up to the guard who held out a rolled up scroll. “Unless Quintillius is another name for _Uriel_ or _Tiber Septim_ then I say good luck to him.” The quill continued on its path, stopping every few scratched lines to be dipped into the ink pot. “Only the Emperor _in all of his wisdom_ can overturn Legion Law.”

 Strangely enough I felt better at hearing the words out loud. A Legate was one of the most powerful men within the entire Empire, seconded only to the Emperor Himself and equal to the various Counts, Kings and Lords within the Provinces. But like all of the men and women in Tamriel they were bound by law, and this one particular law stated that all deserters, once caught would be returned to the Imperial City and face their punishment there. It was an ancient law, one that had been in place since the days of Reman Cyrodiil. Despite the logistical and administrative nightmare of such a law, the greatest military the world was a stickler for details. If the Law stated that a deserter would be fed and transported hundreds of kilometres from where he was posted and captured – then by the Nine it would be done. As a result, and after a fortnight of seeing little more than the interior of a prison cart I had found myself standing in the heart of the Empire.

 I knew exactly why the Legate wanted me returned. The fear of being discovered how he was padding his wages from fining the men and mer under his command and slipping in his duties was ever present. It was this fear that had sent out his mounted _Extraordinarii_ after every man who deserted his post. To my knowledge I had been the only one to make it further than an unmarked grave amidst the fungal forests of Vvardenfell.

 Being attacked and subsequently bitten by a creature of the night had definitely _not_ been part of my plans. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had been injured and stumbled into that patrol of Ordinators I would have comfortably disappeared. Although being captured had had allowed me a week or two respite from my journey to Aetherius as the Ordinators had taken me prisoner within full sight of the squad of mounted legionaries tasked with killing me.

 The muffled curse from the Centurion caught all of our attentions as he forced himself to rise to his feet and look over the series of slates hanging from their hooks. Normally charcoal black, they had been used and reused for so many countless years that the chalk stains had rendered them a pasty grey.

 “The Legion cells are full.” He said, running a hand missing a pair of fingers through his thinning hair. The toga he wore did little to hide the fact that he was a veteran with all the injuries and wounds to show for it. Grey and somewhat faded, the Imperial Dragon branded on his arm revealed him as once belonging to the 8th Legion within Blackmarsh. The mottled scars across every part of his skin showed that he had once suffered from one of the terrible diseases that ravaged that region, a might have been the straw to break the guar’s back in terms of being posted to the Watch.

 “Where do you want us to put him then?” Asked the guard to my right.

 The Centurion rolled his gaze down the slates showing the names of every prisoner and their allocated cells, mouthing each name as he went. The Imperial Prison may have been the largest in the Empire in a city containing over a million citizens, but every district had their own Prefaecture with holding cells. This allowed the Prison district to cater to the worst of the worst, and provided the Legion with its own section for military prisoners.

 “Bugger it. Just throw him somewhere in the south wing.” A hand gestured vaguely in the approximate direction of the door. “I’ll have to talk to Warden Largash but I doubt he’d even notice an ex-legionary in his cells.”

 “Glad we’re not having to fill in the paperwork.” The left hand guard laughed as he pushed me towards the door leading further into the prison.

 “Laugh it up boys. Laugh it up.”

 With not-too-gentle shoves to the spine they pushed me onwards, one standing close behind me with a discipline cane ready in case I tried to run or escape or fight back while the other lead the way. Several passages from the Centurion’s office lead in various directions under the Prison District but it was all too easy to tell that we were underground. No windows, holes or skylights allowed the sun to reach into this world of stone and wood, and only lanterns scattered every few metres let any of us see at all.

It was damp, cold and reeked of sorrow and sadness and the sight of age worn stone was only broken by the plated forms of the various members of the Imperial Watch who acted as wardens and guards for both the military and civilian portions of the underground prison. By the time we had reached the prison wings the security had increased even further. Every door was locked, and manned by one or two fully armed and armoured members of the Watch. Each time we would be stopped, looked over briefly before guards would open the doors, closing and locking them as we passed.

 “This looks good enough for me.” Muttered one of my jailors, as they both seemed to choose a door at random and nod to the single guard standing beside it. The passage we were in was the upper level of the South wing, and connected the dozen of more minor wings like the vacated root structure of an immense stone tree.

 The door thudded closed behind us and I could hear the tell-tale click of the lock being set by the sentry. The sight before me was pitiful and left me feeling thoroughly depressed. The collection of prison cells within this passage of the South Wing were tiny, disused and almost completely empty. The smell of mould and moisture was overwhelming and was not where I would have even considered spending the last days of my life.

 “Oh look,” crawled a voice from the nearest cell on the right. The clang of metal and echoed hauntingly through the vacated cells as a Dark Elf pressed his face against the bars. “An Imperial in the Imperial Prison. I guess they don’t play favourites, huh?”

 Although the bars of his cell door were too closely spaced to fit anything larger than an arm, he did his best to push his head through. For the most part he seemed content in twitching and staring with an expression bordering on insanity plastering his face as it was pulled even more taut by the iron bars.

 “Looks like you have a new friend.” The laugh was shallow and I knew that both of my guards were more bored that anything else. “At least you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted.”

 Flicking through the ring of keys that they had been given by the guard up the short flight of stairs, neither of them seemed to bother with taking me any further than the first available cell. Unfortunately for me it was the one directly opposite the glaring, twitching Dunmer and he watched without blinking as they found the right key, opened the door and pushed me in.

 “Make yourself at home.” With a click the manacles were unlocked and I found myself rubbing absently at my wrists. “You could be here a while.”

 The Legionary gave the squalid cell a brief glance, grunting something under his breath before turning and slamming the door behind him. Their duty had been completed, and I found myself wondering whether they would even tell the Centurion where they had left me. That was even if they even knew what cell was now my home. While the threat of hanging or being beaten to death still hung over my future, I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of dying of disease or old age any better.

 With the door at the top of the stairs locked behind them, I found myself staring into the maniacal expression of my neighbour. “What?”

 A mouth full of broken, rotten stumps of teeth revealed itself in a face paled from years within the darkness. “Your own kinsmen think you’re a piece of human trash.” Hands with cracked fingernails gripped the bars tightly as he looked at me with madness in his eyes. “How sad. I bet the guards give you _special_ treatment before the end.”

 It was my turn to sigh as I looked about my new ‘home’. “At least it’ll be better than being stuck with you.” I replied, taking note of the tiny barred hole to the surface barely larger than my head, the table and chair, slop bucket and the piece of furniture that was only a bed in name. “You and _all your friends_ …”

 He laughed, cackling but without any humour or amusement. “Oh, a funny one I see. I might be locked in here but it’s not forever.” A finger encrusted with grime and filth stabbed in my direction as though it was a spear point. “But you? You’re going to die in here _Imperial_. Imperial criminal scum like you give the Empire a bad name you see...”

 Snuffling and snorting to himself, he turned away from the bars and was lost to the shadows. Only a handful of ill-kept lanterns were within the passage between the dozen cells, and they provided little illumination. What I found disconcerting other than my present company, was how the cell was not much different from my living arrangements in Fort Ironhand.

 The service also appeared comparable. For three days I sat in that cell, watching the tiny strip of light from the barred hole above my head creep across the floor and loosing myself in the depths of my own thoughts. After the first afternoon the boredom was getting to me more than the constant tirade of spite and maliciousness from the bastard in the cell opposite. The taunting and insults would only stop when he was eating the gruel that we were provided, or some of the times that he was asleep. Even between snores he somehow managed to mutter and chatter away incessantly. While I soon learned his name, I had no clue what had left him locked away in the dark depths of the Imperial Prison or for how long. Judging by his appearance it was obvious that the years of captivity had left him bereft of his sanity and wasting away physically. Not that I had any concern or pity for him. I was more concerned of my own fate and the feeling that perhaps execution may be a better end.

 The fang marks in my throat were healing well and I didn’t need to call upon the little magicka I knew to hasten along the process. They concerned me but not in the way that most people would have been concerned after being fed on by a vampire. My alchemical knowledge and skill of living off the land of Northern Vvardenfell had allowed me to find the correct herbs and ingredients to make a poultice. In years in the volcanic north I had seen my salves and ointments successfully treat everything but the Corpus Disease and I knew that there was something terribly wrong with me. Punctured and twisted, the growing scar tissue of the creature’s fangs was not the only wounds I had sustained from my desperate scrabble in the darkness of that cave.

 In the days since receiving the wounds, my blood had clotted, dried, flaked away and left nothing but parallel lines of scabs from above the elbow to the wrist. For over a week I had hid in the grasslands of West Gash and had foolishly chosen a cave to hide from my pursuers. It was that night, just a little south of Caldera while I had tried to sleep and regain my strength I had been set upon.

 A rush of flesh and claws had fallen upon me in the darkness, and I had felt not only the searing pain of it latching onto my throat, but the jagged agony as it raked its talons down the length of my arm. Instinct had been the only reason why I hadn’t been left a drained corpse on the rocky cave floor, and in seconds I had managed to gain the upper hand despite the way it had been latched to my throat. With blood pulsing from my neck and the creature grunting and slurping at the liquid, I had managed to get my hand on my dagger. Before either of us had realised, I had repeatedly jammed the blade into its ribs, ripping and tearing away at it until I had found its heart. I don’t think that it had truly realised it had been killed, so intent it was to drain me of blood. The realisation had managed to reach its bloodthirsty mind, making it pull away with its face contorted in agony. As a result of its curse, it immolated and burned into a sorry pile of bones and dusty ash.

 Weakened from blood loss I had practically stumbled into the Ordinators. They had taken one look at my state and the Legion Brand on my shoulder and had arrested me. They had been content with the way I had treated my wounds, confident that the way I had packed the bite with the slurry of crushed up herbs had killed the infection. I too had been confident, but as every hour and every day slowly passed the doubt continued its inexorable advance into my mind. The bite had been treated, but in the semi-darkness of the Imperial prison I couldn’t help but run my fingers over fresh scars down the length of my left arm, and remember how the creature’s blood had stained it and the injury as it had died.

 By the morning of the third day I was growing concerned that I had somehow failed to remove the infection wholly, or had merely bought time for myself instead. I was also becoming concerned that if I stayed any longer in my cell, that either the boredom or Valen Dreth’s company was going to send me insane.

 “By the Nine and all that is holy can you stop your gods-damned humming?” I spat, sitting back in my chair and counting the number of cracks in the ceiling’s stonework.

 “Humming, humming, humming.” He replied, and I heard the creak of his wooden cot as he stood on the rotting straw mattress. “Hum hum. Ho hum.”

 The bars clanged and I jumped a little as he slammed his face between a gap. “ _Huuuuuuummmmmmmmmm…_ ”

 “No wonder no one else has been locked down here with you.” My chair creaked threateningly as I leaned back further and crossed my arms in front of me. “Even by the standards of Imperial Justice it must have been classified as a cruel and unusual punishment.”

 The humming continued but I could see the image of the Dunmer’s crack-toothed smile in my mind’s eye. He didn’t have a face for grinning but he did so as often as he physically could.

 This deep under the Imperial Prison district there was little sound, especially how the only source of it was through the hole near the ceiling that was mostly for ventilation. I had listened, despite the difficulties posed by my irritating neighbour on and off for most of the previous days at the shouts and cries of the Legion Training grounds on the surface. The Prison District was in effect the Legion District and was the home, headquarters and where every legionary, forester and Battlemage would be trained. No matter what far flung portion of Tamriel they had originally hailed from; all recruits would be brought here for their first year of service.

 But this particular morning just a handful of hours past dawn, the noise was coming from within the prison itself. Doors were unlocked and roughly wrenched open, and the echoes of shouted orders wafted their way through the thick oaken door to the upper levels.

 Whatever was happening had not left Dreth in a good mood. Like the Legion; the Prison seemed to run like a well lubricated dwemer automaton and for the previous days at least the meals had been delivered with precise timings. This morning they were over an hour late with breakfast.

 The infernal humming stopped for a moment as the door up the stairs was unlocked. A second later, the armoured form of one of the Watch jogged down the stairs, clanking and jingling in his full armour. The flushed expression on the Legionary’s face regarded us both briefly, making only the most cursory of glances to the empty cells before disappearing back the way he came.

 “They must be preparing executions.” The Dark Elf muttered evilly as the grind of a lock had faded into a whispered echo. “They are never this lively of a morning unless there’s killin’ to be had.”

 “By the gods I hope so.” I snapped at him, my own temper fraying. My humours were unbalanced not only at the waiting, but the fact that my dreams during the night had been blood soaked and horrifying. Even for someone who had faced down Corpus creatures and worse in his time in the Legion, my nightmares had been left me sweating and shaking. “Being executed would be a relief after being stuck with such a s’wit. How you haven’t managed to choke to death on all the guar shit that dribbles from your mouth is beyond me.”

 He spat on the floor in the corridor, the thick phlegm splattering on the stones but before he could open his mouth to reply the metallic echo of the lock returned. Both of us froze for a moment before a grin spilt his face like a festering wound.

 “Hey, you hear that?” The chuckle, thick and pneumonic rattled in his chest. “The guards are coming… For you!”

 Pressing his face between the bars as he seemed to do out of habit, he tried to peer around and up to the door. I remained in my seat, hoping that it would be what passed for breakfast, but if it was my executioners coming for me it would at least me that the mind-numbing wait was over.

 Metal clanked and rubbed together, and with the rolling echoes, the sounds of several individuals urgently talking reached our ears. Curious, saw Dreth suddenly look very confused and even worried as he backpedalled from the door as fast as he could.

 The armoured silhouette of a soldier appeared at the door to my cell, and I was taken aback at the sight of a suit of armour of a make and design I had never seen before. Interlocking plates covered the man’s shoulder’s, chest and thighs in a shifting skin of metal. While it shared similarities to the thick heavy plate of the Cyrodillic and Northern Legions, it was obvious it was designed more for mobility and agility than solid defence. Metallic ringing and chiming echoed over the sounds of his armour as he fumbled through a considerable amount of keys. So intent on the door’s lock he didn’t even look into my cell.

 “We don’t know that Sire.” A distinctly female voice echoed through the corridor and I watched with utter confusion as more soldiers appeared. “The messenger only said they were attacked.”

 “No, they’re dead. I know it.”

 I shifted in my seat and stood agape at the sight before me. Three heavily armed and armoured soldiers dressed in their unusual armours were enough to gain my attention, but it was snatched away at the fourth individual in the group. Unarmoured and dressed in nothing more than thick robes, not only was he far from a soldier but was easily twice the age of the others who were escorting him. I might not have been able to recognise the others but the older man had a face that had been stamped on pieces of gold and silver coinage throughout the Empire.

 “My job right now is to get you to safety.” Other than the voice, there was nothing to suggest that the individual standing by the side of the aging emperor of female. The armour snuffed out the last of her femininity, and there was not a single trace of difference between her suit and the other two flanking them. There was distinct sense of urgency about all of their actions despite the way the Emperor moved with all the speed and ability of a man of such years, and as the first soldier continued fumbling with his set of keys his commander stepped up to see what the delay was.

 An expression of annoyance darted between her subordinate and his attempts to find the right key for the lock and the interior of my cell, but as she caught sight of me sitting in the chair it turned into something resembling shock and anger. “What’s this prisoner doing here?” She snapped, glaring at me with enough force that I couldn’t help but rise to my feet. There was little that could be seen of her face in her barbute helm, but there was enough to see the inherent threat. “This cell is supposed to be off-limits!”

 Still fumbling with his set of keys, the first soldier looked up suddenly, not only at me but also at his commander. Without his commander’s exclamation of surprise, he wouldn’t have noticed my presence until after he had opened the door.

 “Usual mix-up with the Watch. I…”

 There was a muffled curse from his commander and she stepped up to the bars, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword with every intent to use it at a moment’s notice. “Never mind, just get this gate open.” She glanced at me with as much warmth as a Vvardenfell winter. “Stand back prisoner, we won’t hesitate to kill you if you get in our way.”

 I backed hurriedly against the far wall of my cell, confused and very concerned. These were no palace guards. No violet cloaks or breastplates polished into gleaming mirrors of perfection. Every piece of their equipment was not designed for ceremonies but for the brutality of war, and the recognition of their weapons was enough to leave me pressing my back into the cold stones of the far wall. While I had never seen one in person, everyone within the Empire knew what a Katana looked like and who wielded such weapons.

 They were Blades; the sworn protectors of the Emperor and by far some of the most dangerous individuals within all of Tamriel. Their reputations as expert swordsmen were legendary and even fully armed and armoured I wouldn’t want to cross swords with any one of them. The fact that I was now face to face with three such individuals was more than enough to leave me in a cold sweat despite my confusion.

 The door opened with a screech of poorly oiled metal, and one after another they filed in. Completely ignoring me, the female commander moved over to the wall to my right, pushing in the stones in what appeared to be a very precise pattern. The second Blade, hanging the ring of keys from a hook on his belt moved towards me with all the grace of a predator ad barked an order not to move but my eyes and attention was locked on the third individual who ducked his head through the cell door.

 Uriel Septim VII; the Emperor of all Tamriel stepped inside the suddenly cramped cell with his last bodyguard following dutifully behind. His robes were magnificent, furs wrapped around his shoulders and silks so expensive that their cost alone could’ve supplied an entire legion for months had been pulled tight around his body. He wasn’t dressed for travel and as he shuffled his way inside of the cell I caught a glimpse of an enormous gemmed amulet clasped close to his chest. The central ruby-like stone placed in the centre was as large as my fist and worth more than entire kingdoms.

 There was little to do but to stand there in silence, eyes wide in surprise and shock at the sight of the most powerful of men standing in the very last place I expected to see him. What surprised me even more was when he glanced in my direction for a heartbeat, stopping in mid stride and looking even more shocked to see me than I was to him.

  “You…” I started at the sound of his voice, feeling a surge of terror as he and all three of his bodyguards looked at me. “I’ve seen you…”

 I pressed myself further into the wall as the closest Blade glanced between me and his charge, his grip tightening around the hilt of his Katana menacingly. With a gesture the Emperor stopped him, not taking his eyes from my own as he shuffled closer.

 “You are the one from my dreams…” He murmured, his voice suddenly growing softer despite how his face hardened. “Then the stars were right, and this is the day.” “Gods give me strength.”

 Running my tongue over my lips I glanced between him and his guards, seeing their expressions of confusion mirroring my own. “What’s going on?” I asked, the only words that I managed to choke out of my throat.

 The Emperor sighed, looking suddenly a lot older than even his considerable years. “Assassins attacked my sons, and I’m next. My Blades are leading me out of the city along a secret escape route.” His smile was grim, even though he was chuckling as he gestured to me. “By chance, the entrance to that escape route leads through your cell.”

 Scraping and grinding, the wall began to open and as a single entity the trio of Blades stepped into a protective circle around the Emperor.

 “We better not close this one. There’s no way to open it from the other side.”

 The nearest Blade lightly rested his hand on the Emperor’s shoulder, receiving only the merest of glances from the aged ruler. “Please sir, we must keep moving.”

 “What should I do?” I stammered, feeling totally confused and looking at the determined set of their faces.

 A smile, so tiny that it was almost unnoticeable ran across the Emperor’s face. “You will find your own path.” He motioned to the opened passage as he turned and allowed himself to be led down the tunnel. “Take care, there will be blood and death before the end.”

 The third and last Blade moved past me, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel. For a brief moment he spared me a grin in my direction as he followed his comrades. “Looks like this is your lucky day.” Flints clacked together, and in a shower of sparks the torch in his hand came to life. “Just stay out of our way.”

 Fading into the darkness like shadows, the group disappeared within nothing more than their booted footsteps marking their presence. For several moments I stood there, trying and failing to comprehend exactly what had just happened. With my eyes jumping between Valen Dreth’s astonished face and the open tunnel I knew I was not turning from such an opportunity. Before I realised what exactly I was doing, I had vanished into the darkness, only briefly pausing to stick my middle finger in Dreth’s direction.

 I carefully made my way through the tunnel, following in the Emperor and his guards’ footsteps as it changed from roughly hewn rock to ancient masonry that appeared older than time itself. With every metre I seemed to travel deeper into the catacombs under the prison, my sandaled feet stirring the dust of ages long since passed. There were no other options but to trail after them in the darkness as the tunnels and catacombs seemed to be blocked in every direction but the one they were travelling. With nothing more than the sight of bobbing torches several dozen metres ahead, my eyes soon grew accustomed to the darkness.

 The building concern and lack of understanding of exactly what I had found myself in was worrying. Less than an hour before my biggest concern was how I was going to be executed, and yet instead I found myself stepping in the boot prints of the most powerful individual within the Empire. His sons attacked, possibly dead? And now there was a threat on his life? These were not thoughts that filled me with ease. Obviously the passage in my cell had been set aside as some form of contingency for just such an occasion, but that didn’t explain his apparent recognition of who I was. For some reason that was more terrifying than anything else.

 I had followed them for long enough that my legs were beginning to ache after going for almost a fortnight without any exercise. They had continued on, moving with distinct purpose through the catacombs through every twist, turn, passage and doorway. Not once did they hesitate or divert from their path and for the most part I followed, lingering a few dozen metres behind, out of the sight of their torches but close enough that it helped me traverse the darkness. Every few metres or so the shadows twisted and bunched as the torches played their light across the alcoves and around ancient support pillars, but some deep seated sense of wrongness was worming into the back of my mind. I had not lived and survived so many years in Vvardenfell without trusting my instincts, and before I consciously realised what I was doing I had begun stalking through the shadows after the small group.

 As they moved through a hall of pillars, my heart began racing long before my conscious mind caught up with what my subconscious had noticed minutes before. Shapes moved in mockeries of men and mer, sliding around and between the pillars and hunting those within the tiny patch of light. What I had originally mistaken as tricks of the light and the way it shifted as the Blades walked soon began twisting and condensing around those imbued with a false sense of security from the light’s embrace. Years of hunting allowed me to pick out the movement that didn’t match the flickering torch light even as the shadows became silhouettes, the dozen or so flitting around the tiny group with what were unmistakably weapons gripped tightly.

 My cry of alarm was caught in my throat as one of the shadows suddenly exploded into action from behind a marble pillar. Appearing as though it had ripped itself from the shadows, the figure was well within arm’s reach of the Blade commander. It seemed to tower over her for an instant swinging its darkened limbs with such speed that no one could react in time.

 A scream of pure agony echoed through the confines of the catacombs, accompanied with the wet-crack of bones splintering with considerable force. Shrieking, and clutching at her shattered arm her dropped to the floor with a clatter and a rising explosion of sparks that illuminated her attacker. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was relieved to see a man wearing robes and plate armour rather than some daedra dragged from the depths of my subconscious. A wickedly flanged mace was held in an armoured fist, the Blade on her knees before him and within seconds other shadows flickered into horrible existence.

 Without hesitation or conscious thought, the other two Blades moved purely on instinct, ripping Katanas from sheathes and hurling themselves at the attackers. Utter pandemonium erupted in the enclosed space, the dropped torches sending gigantic shadows across the walls as they and their physical owners hacked, stabbed, kicked and struck at each other in a frenzy of movement. Roared battle cries overwhelmed grunts of exertion and the gurgling sounds of the dying. With wild abandon the attackers swarmed the pair of fighting men, the Blade Commander laying on the ground where she had fallen and the pale featured Emperor backing away from the melee with undue haste.

 What the Blades hadn’t seen was that they were surrounded with half a dozen armoured attackers reaching from the shadows. The crippling strike against the Commander had been the signal for the ambush, and the assassins moved with utter surety as they sought to end the lives of the remaining blades. As the majority of the attackers surrounded and hacked at the pair, one solitary individual rushed the Emperor from the side where there was no guard to save him.

 The Blades had ruined their vison by the torches they carried, hiding the assassins from sight but what the assassins hadn’t realised was they too had been left unable to see well in the darkness. I could tell by the way they moved and stumbled towards their victims that they had been foolishly staring at the torches. From my position further back I had followed with one eye closed, ensuring that I never looked directly at the only source of light. I relied entirely on my peripheral vison to make my way in the shadows, but now I was the only one in the catacombs that could fight both in the darkness and the limited light. Moving quickly, I opened both eyes, using the mismatched visons to see in the light and the darkness simultaneously. Without allowing myself to consider my actions I broke out into a run, crossing the distance between me and the assassins in seconds.

 Striding with malicious purpose, the assassin was so intent on reaching the Emperor with his gleaming obsidian dagger that the first he realised he was under attack was when I crashed bodily into him. Dressed in nothing more than rags, I was at a considerable disadvantage against an opponent as heavily armoured as the assassin. The blood coloured robes clung close to his flesh, and the esoteric plate armour he wore stabbed into the back of my mind with the greasy magical taint it extruded. My magical abilities were limited but there was no mistaking the fact that my foe was wearing plate armour conjured from the depths of Oblivion, especially as we found ourselves grappling with each other on the cold stone floor.

 The surprise was my only advantage and was one that I used to its full benefit. Even before he had realised that he was under attack I had busted my knuckles into the scowling face mask that he wore, forcing inarticulate howls of pain to be cut off with every blow. Flailing about, the best he could do was roll the two of us over until I found myself on my back, and if it wasn’t for the way I had grasped his knife hand with one of my own I could have very easily found myself bleeding out on the ancient tiles.

 “Gods. Damned. Bloody. Bastard!” I grunted, jamming a knee into his armoured chest while trying desperately to keep the serrated dagger from my face and throat. While marginally stronger and actually trained in comparison to my opponent, he was far heavier in his conjured armour. Before I could do anything more than jam an elbow into his throat he was suddenly pressing down hard, forcing his entire body weight down onto his dagger and gripping it in both hands.

 “Die, unbeliever!” he hissed through his mask, the scowling plate muffling the words with a metallic dullness. I could see the hints of madness in the depths of the mask’s eye slits, feeling him trembling with exertion as I put all my strength into holding him at bay.

 Chiming, and barely noticeable in the raging melee, I almost felt rather than heard the metallic echo of something dropping to the floor near us. Without breaking my gaze with the plated assassin panting on top of me, I quickly reached down with my left hand while the right held him back with an arm strong from years of using a bow. Desperate for something, _anything_ to use against my blood maddened enemy, my fingers brushed over what was obviously a hilt before wrapping around it and jamming it into an eye.

 A powerful spasm ran through the assassin, his dagger dropping from nerveless fingers as I pinned the mask to his face with the dagger. Ten centimetres of pointed steel was lost in the depths of his skull, the point scraping at bone at the back of his head and the sudden loss of resistance almost made me throw the freshly dead corpse aside. There was no surviving such an injury but now that my blood was up I had twisted onto my knees even before the dead man had finished rolling onto his back.

 The battle as such was over, and in the dim flickering light of the dropped torches I could see half a dozen bodies strewn about. Blood had sprayed in darkening arcs in all directions, staining the white marble floors and pillars and soaking into decades of dust. The sudden lack of fighting and noise seemed even more deafening than the carnage that had taken place in the confines of the catacombs, and I found myself looking about at how all of the assassins were left sprawled about. There was no mistaking the fact that they were all extremely dead.

 The sudden cracking of energy stabbed into my mind and I recoiled from my opponent as his armour began to dissipate and slough away. Like spun sugar left in the rain the armour dissolved and ran into the cracks in the ground, evaporating into smoke before my very eyes. In seconds all that was left was the red-robed corpse with the hilt of a dagger jutting from a bloody eye socket.

 “What the fu-”

 My exclamation of surprise was cut away as I felt the distinct sensation of a peerless edge coming to rest against my throat.

 “I wouldn’t move if I were you.” There was no mistaking the threat in the voice from behind me. “Are you alright Sire?”

 Gore ran down the gleaming edge of the katana and I felt some of it drip down the front of my neck and chest. Both of the Blades who remained standing were coated with blood, but none of which appeared to be their own.

 The Emperor moved into my field of view, moving hesitatingly but surely as he looked at his bodyguards. “I’m fine Glenroy. But… Captain Renault?”

 To my left the second Blade was kneeling down over the prone body of their commander. The look in his eyes said more than words ever could as he unbuckled the sheathed katana from her side. Her head and helmet had been caved in from a blow of considerable force, shattering her skull and ensuring that death had been quick and complete. “She’s… Dead. I’m sorry Sire, but we have to keep moving.”

 Despite his position and noble birth, the death and carnage within the catacombs didn’t seem to bother the old man. As he gave a brief nod in return I realised that he was no stranger to death and violence.

 “What about the prisoner?” the katana didn’t tremble but I felt the tiniest increase in pressure of the edge into my flesh. “I don’t trust him. He could be working with the assassins.”

 “If he was I doubt he would’ve rushed to our aid as he did.” There was a dark chuckle from the Emperor as he looked at me and gestured to the corpse beside me. “I also wouldn’t have provided him with my dagger.”

 Ensuring that I didn’t move anything more than my gaze, I glanced at the corpse and the dagger jutting from its eye. The hilt alone was covered with silver etching and gemstones. It was easily worth several years’ worth of legion salary and I felt strangely uncomfortable using something so expensive to take a life.

 “We should kill him. Just to be certain.”

  “No, he is not one of them. He can help us.”

 The katana hovered at my throat for a moment, remaining against my flesh just long enough to convey displeasure but not long enough to be considered insubordinate. Then, as quickly as it had appeared it had disappeared and I noticeably relaxed.

 “He mightn’t be one of them, but I still wouldn’t put any faith in a _deserter_.” Snapping the Katana out to his side with an outstretched arm I watched as the gore that coated his blade was flicked across the floor.

 “Deserter he may be.” The tone was cold from the Emperor as he moved between us, watching as I slowly rose to my feet. “He _must_ help us.”

 Turning he gestured to the Blade tucking his commander’s sword into his belt. “Baurus, give this man a sword.”

 Although ordered to, Baurus clearly hesitated at the idea of arming me. Even as mentally juggled with the order he patted his hands amongst the small collection of weapons fastened to his waist before pulling a gladius and its sheath from his belt.

 “Are you sure about this sire?” his tone was wary as he held out the sword for me to reluctantly take from his hands.

 “I am sure.” The Emperor’s expression was grim, but a half-smile ghosted up his face before motioning for the three of us to follow Glenroy’s steps.

 The darkness consumed us and I ran my hands up the scabbarded length of the Gladius that I had been given. Having a Legion blade made me feel a lot more confident despite how I had found myself standing next to the most powerful individual in all of Tamriel.

 “They do not understand why I trust you.” He said simply, shuffling his way through the passageways with dust clinging to the hems of his priceless robes.

 “To be honest Sire,” I replied, doing everything I could not to look in his direction. “I don’t understand either.”

 He sighed, and I could clearly see that every year of his long life had left deep marks upon his body, mind and soul. If half of the stories that I had heard were true, he had experienced far more than any one man should.

 Each step was placed carefully into the floor, the priceless shoes he worn now permanently stained with gore. “How can I explain?” The question was directed at himself as we made our way down a short flight of stairs, but he was looking at me intently. “You know of the Nine? How they guide the fates with an invisible hand?”

 I snorted involuntarily, earning a backwards glance from Glenroy that was filled with obvious loathing and a threat of punishment if I continued to show disrespect.

 “I’m not on good terms with the Gods.” With a shrug I ignored the Blade’s disapproving glance and cast my eyes through the shadows in front of us, closing one eye to preserve what little night vision I had left. “I doubt I would’ve found myself in such a position if it was otherwise.”

 “How many have found themselves considering the same thing I wonder?” Despite the way that neither of his surviving bodyguards trusted me that allowed me to walk by his side, trusting in their skills to be able to cut me down before I could doing anything to their charge. There was a faint grin on his face as I glanced between him and Baurus following closely behind. “I've served the Nine all my days, and I chart my course by the cycles of the heavens. The skies are marked with numberless sparks, each a fire, and every one a sign. I know these stars well…”

 His voice trailed off as he lifted his head to the ceiling, staring as though he could see the night sky despite the metres of masonry and soil above us. “The signs I read show the end of my path. My death; a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

 “Aren’t you afraid to die?”

 For the first time since the cell our eyes met and I couldn’t help but shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the chill of the catacombs. “No trophies of my triumphs precede me. But I have lived well, and my ghost shall rest easy. Men are but flesh and blood. They know their doom, but not the hour. In this I am blessed to see the hour of my death... To face my apportioned fate, then fall.”

 This time the smile on his face was grimmer, his eyes seemingly shrinking into his head and his shoulders slumping with the full weight of his age. “I go now to my grave. A tongue shriller than all the music calls me. You shall follow me yet for a while, then we must part.”

 I found myself lost for words, moving through the wider expanse alongside the Emperor and between his loyal guards. There was nothing moving within the area other than ourselves, our footfalls lifting tiny swirls of dust with every step. I couldn’t help but think that a combination of old age and grief had addled the Emperor’s wits, but he was so sure, so full of conviction that it was hard not to hold onto every word he said. Believing that I had been spared was one thing, but I wasn’t in the state of mind to believe I was free until I felt the sun on my face and the wind on my skin.

 Continuing in silence we made our way further into the undercity, passing through halls and passages that had long since been without the presence of mortals. From room to passage to rooms we passed through the ancient crumbling depths of the Imperial City and while I was hopelessly lost the two Blades at least knew exactly where they were heading. Unfortunately it seemed so did their enemies as we found ourselves facing an ancient metal portcullis that had been barred and chained with fresh looking steel padlocks linking it all together.

 At the sight of it, Glenroy showed his displeasure in a way we had all considered. As the echo of his boot smashing into the bars and chains died away he swore forcefully under his breath.

 “What about that side passage back there?” Baurus gestured to the darkened hallway a dozen meters further down the passage.

 In the depths there was an echo, a reverberation that plucked at the edges of our senses and almost as a single individual we all turned and shared glances. While faint, the sound of metal on metal and hurried footsteps began growing noticeably by the second.

 “Worth a try!” Glenroy snarled, dropping his torch to the floor and tearing his Katana free. The first sign of nervousness from the Emperor’s bodyguard was the way how he tested the edge of his sword with a gloved thumb.

 With Baurus leading the way, and Glenroy and I following closely behind the Emperor we moved through the doorway. The echoes were growing with every second and my new gladius was in hand without even realising that I had drawn the blade. We barely even made it more than a dozen metres down the passage before we came to a shuddering halt, seeing Baurus’ despondent expression as he shrugged at the tiny space we occupied. It was tiny, barely enough space inside the L shaped room to swing a sword. It was a dead end, both figuratively and literally.

 Cries of impending murder and further bloodletting echoed like the braying of hunting dogs as more assassins followed in our footsteps. The silence that had almost been deafening in our travel was now nothing more than a wish.

 “What’s your call sir?” asked Baurus, gripping his katana tightly and leaning into the passage at the approaching enemies.

 Glenroy paused, looking around the tiny room for a moment before looking directly at me. “Wait here with the Emperor,” he spat, pointing to the floor with his sword and rolling the muscles of his neck under the splint mail gorget. “Guard him with your life.”

 The sudden responsibility hit me like a charging orc and I nodded, struggling to keep the tremor out of my sword arm. For his part, The Emperor moved across to the far end of the room, leaning against the wall and feeling the exertion finally catch up to him as his Bodyguards rushed down the passage.

 Screams wracked the catacombs, broken by the sounds of metal on metal and the softer _thunks_ of blades cutting deeply into flesh. Despite the level of fear that was threatening to consume me, I felt strangely at peace as I remembered of the numerous times I had faced similar situations over the years. Standing in the depths of the Imperial City, dressed in rags and standing between the Emperor and a horde of baying assassins was a far cry from hunting Ashlander insurgents or slaughtering Corpus beasts. The strange familiarity of standing firm and preparing to do my duty was a comfort at least, and compared to the fate that awaited me only hours before I felt glad that if I was to die I would die on my feet with a weapon in hand. Especailly compared to the alternative of hanging with piss streaming down my legs.

 “My guards are strong and true,” came the voice behind me, and I glanced back to the Emperor who looked exhausted in the flickering torchlight. “but even the might of the Blades cannot stand against the power that rises to destroy us.”

 “None will get past me while I’m breathing Sire.” I replied, feeling the tension building in my shoulders and muscles for the expected killing.

 The Emperor shook his head sadly. “The Prince of Destruction awakes, born anew in blood and fire. These cutthroats are but his mortal pawns.”

 In short steps he moved closer, lifting the giant gemstone amulet from around his neck and holding it out for me. “Take my Amulet. Give it to Jauffre. I have a secret son, and Jauffre alone knows where to find him. Find the last of my blood, and close shut the marble jaws of Oblivion.”

 Questions filled my mind, tumbling over themselves in the effort to make their way to my mouth and be voiced. I stood there in shock, staring at the Amulet as though it was a venomous reptile and not quite being able to bring myself to grab it from his hands. The loud, ear piecing shriek of someone dying horribly from the passage broke my mental stalemate, and to both the Emperor’s and my own surprise one of the armoured forms of the Assassins rounded the corner drenched in gore.

 He had managed to fight his way past the Blades, but looked like he had gone through Oblivion to do so. One arm dangled nerveless by his side, drenched in gore that was entirely his own. A great chunk of armour, robe and flesh had been hewn from his shoulder and revealed the gleaming white of bone amidst the red-black of his conjured armour. His other hand gripped a wickedly curved blade, forged in the rough shape of a katana but not of any design made by mortal hands. It was longer than my solid, dependable gladius with its design seated in the history of the Empire but I felt confident in my chances. Especially when faced with a wounded foe.

 The screaming from the passage was deafening as I threw myself at the wounded assassin, watching as he drew his arm up high over the shoulder and swung with all his might. His blade was nearly a full metre in length and it made a keening sound as it sliced through the air towards me. I didn’t even bother ducking or blocking the blade, watching with grim satisfaction as his lack of skill imbedded the sword tip into the ceiling and jarred his entire arm.

 The sudden fear in the assassin’s eyes was clear even under the mask and hood of his conjured armour. With me rushing him, he tried to drag the sword from where the ancient marble had grasped it but failing to pull it free in time. Stabbing forward with years of practice and training, I rolled my wrist and arm into the motion, the tip of the gladius snaking out and spearing the assassin right in the throat. The razored tip of the blade made a mockery of the assassin’s conjured plate, spearing through the metal and flesh underneath with little resistance. While not an instantly fatal strike, there was little for him to do but release his grip on the sword, grasp at his throat and vainly attempt to stem the flow gushing from between his fingers.

 Behind him the passageway was full of the dead and dying. One of the Blades was fending off several of the assassins with a skill I had never seen, but his comrade was on his back. Sprawled out on the ancient masonry, he was the source of the terrible screaming as he went about dying messily. Several of the assassins surrounded him while the others fought on, swords and daggers rising and falling into the Blade’s broken armour and body. even as they cut the life from him and the grip on his sword wavered, he managed to jam his thumbs into a shrieking assassin’s eyes who had lost his mask in the wild melee. Both his and the assassin were locked together as the others hacked and stabbed in gouts of blood and gore, and I ripped my own sword away as my foe slapped wetly onto his face.

 Before I charge to the surviving Blade’s aid, motion in the corner of my eye stopped me in place. Somehow, in the darkness of the room another of the armoured assassins had appeared, leaping from an alcove behind the Emperor. Black-red and gleaming like the carapace of a beetle, an arm wrapped around the Emperor, pulling him back into the assassin’s embrace.

 Old man stiffened and arched his back away from the assassin and the cold intrusion of the blade in his vitals. Even as I tried desperately to cross the space between us I could see the two of them twitching as the killer stabbed the Emperor repeatedly in the back.

 “Stranger.” The cowled and masked Assassin laughed as his blade tasted the blood of the Septim dynasty. “You chose a bad da-”

 Whatever words he had for me died with him as I lunged, putting the full weight of my body into a blow and almost leaping across the remaining distance between us. Twisting my hips and thrusting my sword forward, I used every ounce of my strength in an arm grown strong and muscular from years of using a longbow. The strike was perfect, moving faster than the assassin could react and punching through the obsidian mask like paper. Coated in the blood of the first assassin, the edge of the gladius came within a finger’s breadth of the Emperor’s right ear, rocking the killer’s head back as though punched. As they both fell backwards the entire length of the sword had sliced through teeth, gums, tongue and throat to erupt from the back of his skull. The force of my charge had been so complete and forceful that his front teeth were shattered on the hilt.

 The assassin fell backward, his dagger falling to the floor wet with the Emperor’s blood. He was dead before he even hit the floor and the hilt of the sword jutted from the man’s mouth like an obscene metal tongue when the armour sloughed away. Unfortunately, the Emperor’s mortality was not far behind. Falling with the dead weight of the Assassin at his back the three of us were left sprawled bloodily across the floor. I had seen enough mortal injuries to know that the knife had punctured a lung and had sliced arteries around his heart. Even if it hadn’t been a mortal wound, his advanced age meant that the shock alone was enough to kill him.

 An apology tried to rise itself to be heard but I couldn’t make my mouth preform the actions, staring into the Emperor’s face as it went white and the eyes started to turn glassy. He knew death’s approach with greater certainty than what I did. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth as the blood in his lungs made itself felt, but it did little to stop him from raising a hand and slapping it to my chest with the last of the strength that he could muster.

 The life leeched away from his body as he died in my arms. Soon, he too began to cool like the dozen or more corpses scattered between us and my pitiful cell. It all felt like a complete waste and for several seconds I knelt there, feeling the lightness of the wrinkled hand pressed to my chest and the solid lump of jewellery held tightly within.

 The fighting died off in the passage behind me, and I couldn’t bring myself to turn around to face what I expected to be my death. Even the anguished sob and the sudden clatter of dropped metal wasn’t enough for me to turn away from the dead Emperor.

 Bareheaded and drenched in gore, Baurus dropped to his knees beside me. If it wasn’t for the tiny trickles of blood from the corners of his mouth and the glassy eyes that stared into infinity, it would’ve been easy to mistake the aged man for merely sleeping.

 “We’ve failed...” Every word was torn from the depths of his chest and it was all he could do not to collapse with the weight of his despair. “I’ve…. Failed….”

 Neither of us spoke, my hand moving over the Emperor’s blank features as I carefully closed the eyes of the dead man. Despite the grip of death and the slackness of the muscles, I had to lower the Emperor’s hand from where it had been pressed into my sternum.

 The young Blade beside me watched as I went about providing the dead ruler with as much dignity as I could afford. The crushing sensation of failure was hard to stomach for either of us, and Baurus sucked in several gasping lungful’s of air. “The Blades were sworn to protect the Emperor, and now he and all his heirs are dead.”

 For a moment he simply stared at the corpse, the Emperor laying on his back in all of his finery that was now ruined by the expanding pool of blood. The young Blade was quiet, but the sudden tenseness that filled him was obvious to even a blind man as he reached forward and pressed his hand into the Emperor’s chest.

 “The Amulet? Where’s the Amulet of Kings?”

 “I have it.” I said simply, holding it by its gold chain and staring at the massive central jewel as I tried to comprehend all that had happened. “He gave it to me...”

 The silence dragged on as he searched my face for any trace of falsehood. “Strange.” The whisper seemed to echo in the confines of the room as he turned back to the corpse. “He saw something in you. Trusted you.”

 Unsteadily he rose to his feet but he gripped my offered hand as I hauled him up. Groaning as he started feeling his muscles cramp he continued looking me dead in the eye. “They say it’s the Dragon Blood that flows through the veins of every Septim; they see more than lesser men.”

 “Why would he give such a thing to me?” I looked over the amulet, feeling its impressive weight. Between the gold and the series of gems it was almost a kilogram and infinitely priceless.

 With a dark chuckle he wiped his katana clean on the robes of the first assassin I had killed before sheathing it at his side. “The Amulet of Kings is a sacred symbol of the Empire. Most people think of the Red Dragon Crown, but that's just jewellery.” A finger stabbed at the amulet dangling from my grasp. “The Amulet has power. Only a true heir of the _Blood_ can wear it, they say. He must have given it to you for a reason.”

 I shrugged. “He said I must take it to Jauffre.”

 “Jauffre?” Puzzlement and suspicion warred for a moment in his eyes. “He said that? Why?”

 “There’s another heir, and apparently Jauffre knows where to find him.”

 “Nothing I’ve ever heard about,” Baurus chewed his lip and wiped his face with the back of his hand. It did nothing more than wipe more blood across his features already heavily streaked in gore. “but Jauffre would be the one to know. He’s the Grandmaster of my Order, although you would not think so to meet him.”

 Moving over to the corpses I quickly patted them down for anything that might have been of use. Despite wearing rags I was not about to strip a corpse, especially how all of the assassins had been wearing the same blood coloured robes like some kind of uniform. It didn’t stop me from pulling rings and other tiny trinkets from their bodies though.

 “Why is that?” I asked, slipping a pair of rings over my fingers due to my lack of pockets.

 The Blade laughed, but there was little humour in it. “He lives quietly as a monk at Weynon Priory, just outside the City of Chorrol.”

 “That’s what? Two or three days from here?”

 Baurus nodded at my question “More like four. Especially on foot.”

 A glance around the room showed little, except for the fact that one of the alcoves that had been nothing but solid stone when we had first entered was now a gaping hole. “I’ll need to get out of here first.”

 “Glad to see that you are at least taking this seriously.” He sighed loudly and ran his blood streaked hands through his hair. The clotting liquid stuck to the closely cropped hair that was now plastered to his skull with more than just sweat. “I know that this is a lot to take in all at once, but trust me when I say I know how it feels. No one will be more surprised than me that I’m sending an escaped prisoner off with the Amulet of Kings!” he paused for a moment, staring around himself with the beginnings of tears in his eyes. He had been one of the few chosen to guard the Emperor, and despite the fact he was the last of the trio that had entered my cell I realised that he was younger than what I was. “but… the Emperor trusted you for a reason, and I trust the Emperor.”

 “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” I admitted, not taking my gaze of the Amulet as I motioned to him and the carnage around us. “But what about you? What will you do?”

 “I… I’ll stay here to guard the Emperor’s body, and make sure no one follows you.”

 A tiny pouch with a tied string was pulled from his belt and he gave it to me while pointing to the hole. “That has to go somewhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it manages to go around that blocked gate. Past that gate is a secret entrance into the sewers.” a scowl tightened his features. “Or it was supposed to be secret…”

 I swore under my breath at the prospect of entering the sewers and felt the weight of the pouch he had given me. It was obviously containing a dozen or more coins. “Sewers… of course.”

 “Not all of our duties are glorious.” He grimaced as I put my boot on the successful Assassin’s shoulder and heaved back on the hilt of the gladius, freeing it from the dead man’s mouth in a wash of blood. “A merry jaunt through a cesspit isn’t going to be the worst you would have faced.”

 Looking at the way he had pointed to the Legion brand on my shoulder I nodded. “Seven years in the 14th.”

 “Good. _Good_ …” The young Blade was obviously feeling better that the Amulet was in the hands of a soldier rather than some damn bard or acrobat. “In that case a few rats and goblins won’t give you any trouble.”

 “Goblins? Suppose it’s better than corpus creatures at least.” I offered my hand to him, seeing how both of us were splattered with blood to the elbow. “I’m Kaius by the way.”

 His hand gripped mine and it felt like I was shaking hands with a dwemer centurion. He might have been young but he was strong. “Baurus.” Nodding to the hole he gave my hand a quick squeeze and let go. “You better get out of here. There’s no telling who will come first; the Blades or more assassins.”

 “I understand, and I don’t feel like being put back in a cell.” Pausing only briefly in the threshold of the passage I looked back at him and gave a grim smile.

 “May Talos guide you.” he said as I ducked through the hole.

 In the darkness and with the Amulet of Kings gripped tightly in the palm of my hand I couldn’t help but shiver. “I’m going to need as much help as I can get.” I said to the encroaching shadows, trying to shake away the building urge to lick the blood from my arms.


	2. Deserter

The sun was high in the sky when I emerged from a dribbling tunnel leading into the depths of the sewers. Home to creatures both natural and not, I had managed to somehow walk into the sunlight a lot better off than I had been when I had left my cell. The Undercity of the greatest city in the Empire was home to beasts and men, and as such I had somehow managed to not only find clothing but the smatterings of armour that left me feeling much more confident. The stench that radiated from me was a different story however. In the semidarkness of the sewers, lit only by what light filtered down the drains and barred holes in the gutters I had somehow managed to avoid being gutted by a goblin. Unfortunately killing the beast had left me falling into a river of effluent that had left me violently vomiting three days’ worth of gruel. Somehow the smell of bile had managed to be an improvement.

 Through the simple process of throwing myself into the Rumare I had managed to wash off the majority of the unmentionables that I had bathed in. Using some of the coins that Baurus had gifted me I had managed to hire one of the hundreds of fishing boats and barges that plied the lake. Leaving the shadows of the city behind me and luckily getting off City Isle before the assassination and the failed attempts forced the Imperial Watch and the Praetorians to lock it down.

 And so I found myself in the afternoon breeze, feeling the late summer warmth on my flesh and trying to understand how I had found myself at a crossroads. Both figuratively and literally. On the north shore between the dozens of minor settlements and fishing huts I looked at the sign posts and the milestones, grimacing at the journey ahead of me. To the west lay Chorrol, and the destination of the priceless artefact stuffed into a mouldering backpack I had pulled from a goblin trove. It was four days’ travel, even at the pace that all Legionaries were accustomed to. The issue was that other than the acquired remnants of equipment that I carried I had nothing. Without a bow I couldn’t hunt, and I wasn’t in the position to set up camp somewhere to rely on snares and traps to catch rabbits and other small woodland creatures for food. Besides a handful of rings and the meagre collection of coins I wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to Chorrol without some divine intervention or absurd luck.

 To the north however lay the city of Bruma, less than eighty kilometres away and easily within two days marching distance. I knew enough of Cyrodiil from my first year as a _Hastatii_ that I could easily make that distance even with my meagre supplies and equipment. Better yet, I knew someone who lived there who owed me a favour. The weight of the Amulet of Kings in my pack was a considerable weight that had nothing to do with the gold and gemstones it was made from. Every pace that I took was accompanied by the thoughts of everything that had happened that morning, and my dreams for two nights travel were filled with shifting images of assassins in the dark and prophecies from the lips of a dead man. What concerned me more however was the fact that my dreams were turning darker, more horrific and more overwhelmingly bloody. No matter how hard I was trying to ignore the fact, there was something insidiously wrong with me.

 With makeshift boots which were little more than leather and cloth wrappings around my feet I strode along the road. Years of hunting and moving though the wilds as a forester and as a legionary marching in a cohort had left my body tempered and hard as iron. A distance that most would have quailed at was barely a hindrance and my legs were inexhaustible. Up the gradually sloping road where the scattered forest thinned away to rocky soil and tumbled hills on the base of the mountains I continued. It was almost pleasant compared to the times I had slogged my way through shifting ash storms and blinding snow. It was made almost laughably easy by the fact that I was carrying a tenth of the weight I would have had I not deserted. While I missed the sensation of security and comfort from my chainmail and leather armour, and especially my bow it was significantly easier to march without thirty kilograms of extra equipment weighing me down.

 By the time the sun had reached its zenith on the second day I had come into sight of the towering walls of Bruma. Fifteen metres tall, and gently sloped, they towered high in the valley as though they were challenging the foreboding peaks of the Jerrall Mountains for supremacy. The city itself was a simple affair, the influence of the Nords evident in every brick and stone of its construction. It was the gateway to the Empire’s Heart, close to the legendary Pale Pass and one of the few accessible routes north to Skyrim. Numerous battles had been fought here, and uncountable soldiers had died in this region and Bruma had been built with this in mind.

 Scattered at even intervals along the walls, towers rose into the sky and allowed the city to command the sweeping plain to the north and east where the Jerall’s split and levelled out. Armies could clash and bleed in this region, but as long as the city stood there would be no lasting victory.

 Wagons rolled through the gateway, each being stopped by the small number of bored and weary looking city guard and officials as they accounted for each and every good brought into, and leaving the city. A common sight throughout the Empire, the Imperial Taxmen and Customs officers were a necessary evil to allow trade to flow and the Imperial Coffers to be filled. For travellers like myself they barely even spared a glance, especially one dressed as poorly as myself. I didn’t have to be concerned with vagrancy or being mistaken for a beggar as they were already inside the city walls and it was unheard of for such individuals to move between cities. Not unless they were suicidal in any case.

 Walking into the city I made my way through the crowded streets where peddlers and merchants attempted to muscle their way into each other’s trades and beggars scraped and kowtowed for a coin. Women of the night, crooks, citizens and craftsmen moved, jostled, apologised, swore and spat; an ever shifting mass of humanity that was the same no matter the city or the species that filled it.

 I was seeking a single man in particular; a member of the town guard and someone who I considered as a friend. Iglund Burdlam; a towering Nord who had spent the best part of his youth in the legion had been one of the few that had managed to survive long enough to receive his pension and return to his home. In the days before he left Fort Ironhand he had told me that if I had ever found myself in Cyrodiil and needed assistance that I was to seek him in Bruma.

 At all times, one hand tightly gripped the straps of my pack and I wove through the flowing crowds of people as they went about their daily business in the afternoon chill. On every corner, market stall and even one of the local taverns I would stop to ask if anyone knew where I could find him.

 Surprisingly it wasn’t a lengthy search, and even less surprisingly he had done well in the years since leaving the legion. No longer a Centurion in command of the Fort’s 3rd Cohort, I soon discovered that he was now in charge of the entire city’s guard contingent.

 The air moaned softly as I pushed through the solid door into the castle barracks, and I sighed thankfully as the warm air washed over me It might have been the dying days of summer, but the mountains were always cold. Winter was fast approaching but as I stepped inside, the barracks felt more like a home to me than anywhere else in the Empire. Rows of bunks, chests at the foot of each lined the walls and I couldn’t help but grin slightly as I saw all the details of the Legion’s influence on the guard.

 The clink of metal and the sound of rustling chainmail announced the presence of one of the Guard. Clad in a solid but lightweight mail and surcoat, she would have been an imposing sight to any pickpocket or drunkard. At the sight of me she stepped forward looking highly annoyed, expecting me to either be little more than an overly hopeful beggar or a source of some work in her near future.

 “Can I help you?” she asked, idly scratching her scalp under the chainmail coif. Her tone of voice suggested that she desired the complete opposite of the question though.

 “I’m here to see Captain Burd.” I replied, looking around the barracks hall. “I was told that he was here.”

 “And what business do you have with him?” The look of annoyance grew stronger.

 “I’m an old friend of his from the Legion, and I thought I would catch up with him on the way through Bruma.”

 The snort from the guard told me how much she believed what I said, but she did quickly measure me up with a single gaze. Noting the scars up my forearms from hundreds of hours of sword practice, and the unmistakeable way I held myself that was shared by all those who had served she decided to give me the benefit of the doubt.

 Shrugging, she motioned for me to follow her, turning and walking down a short flight of steps to the lower level with her chainmail jingling with every step. The temperature dropped a handful of degrees, but was still thankfully warm and for the second time in a week I found myself looking at rows of cells and their barred doors.

 For a moment I felt as though I had made a mistake, looking around the prison level of the castle and seeing how unlike the Imperial City Prison with it’s neat wings of narrow corridors and a cell for each prisoner, the Bruma dungeon was a single room, several dozen metres square. This space was filled with several tables and desks where prisoners would be processed by the jailors and where at least one of their number would be seated at all times to keep an eye on the inmates.

 The cells themselves were spread around the outer walls, each easily large enough to contain half a dozen beds, and accommodate twice that number of prisoners in a pinch. For the moment most were devoid of any warm bodies, and with a glance I saw that besides a handful of drunks passed out where they were obviously used to spending a considerable number of nights, there were only a pair of prisoners of any note. The first; a towering, heavily muscled Nord paced aggressively back and forth in his cell, alone and obviously placed there for a reason. The other prisoner was a Dark Elf of striking beauty who stared with an empty expression at all those who entered the prison. It was an expression not of despair, but of complete apathy and distain that marred her achingly beautiful features into something almost hideous.

 My escort walked quickly over to one of the hunched figures seated at one of the desks, quill scratching away carefully on the parchment in front of him. A quick tap on the shoulder and a handful of whispered words in the ear later and the armoured form of the guard commander stood up, turned and looked at me with an expression of weary resignation.

 “You don’t have to bring every wandering vagrant in to….” He stopped in mid-sentence, his broad face suddenly lighting in surprise as he recognised me. “By the Nine…. Kaius?”

 With a laugh and barely before I could reply he had stepped forward and picked me from off the ground in a crushing hug.

 “Good to see you too you Nordic bastard.” I said to him as I managed to disentangle myself from his grasp. Although we both shared the same height, a lifetime of wearing fifty kilograms of plate armour, shield and sword had left Iglund a lot bigger and broader in the chest.

 “It’s been what? Three years?” he said, laughing slightly and waving his thanks to the guard who had escorted me down. “To be honest I didn’t expect to see you again.”

 We moved across to one of the tables furthest from the occupied cells and I dragged out a seat while I dropped my pack to the floor with a thump. He straddled a stool, which squeaked alarmingly as he settled his muscled and chainmail clad bulk onto it.

 “It has been a while and that’s the truth.” For the first time in weeks, or months if I was honest with myself I felt happier and strangely at home. Iglund Burdlam, or “Burd” had been somewhat of a mentor to me during the early years at Fort Ironhand, and between him, Ozzarious, Lukah and myself we had been one of the small groups of Legionaries who had supported each other through every hardship we had faced.

 “What brings you to this frozen armpit of the Empire? He asked, giving me a solid measuring glance at my clothes and belongings. “Especially dressed like an Ashlander vagabond?”

 “Looking for you coincidentally. I need a bit of help.”

 The grunt from him spoke volumes. “Ah. I see.” With a nod and a gesture, he motioned at my right bicep, where the Legion brand was only partially covered by the sleeves of the tunic I wore. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that fresh cross over your mark would it?”

 I grimaced and leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms in the vain attempt to hide the fresh branding of a deserter over the older brand of the Imperial dragon and the numerals of the 14th. The cross brand was the easiest way of tracking a deserter, and I knew that I would have to do something about the mark if I was to stay ahead of the authorities.

 My lack of a response and embarrassment served more of a response to Burd than anything that I could say. He signed heavily, looking around the prison for any other guards. “I would say that it surprises me but that would be a lie.”

 An eyebrow raised on my face and he chuckled. “If I’m truly honest I’m surprised that you didn’t leave sooner by what little I have heard of Legate Quintillius. It was either that or you would’ve ended up dead.”

 “It was bad.” I admitted, nodding not only to myself but in response to his statement. “There’s a lot of good legionaries that are in the ground up there because of him.”

 “Aye, I can understand that but I’m not going to ask what sort of trouble you are in. That way I don’t have to lie if I’m asked.” With a scrape of wood on stone he stood up and moved over to the thick wooden door beside the stairs to the upper level and began fumbling with the lock. “I’m assuming that you are looking for equipment and better gear than those scraps you are wearing, and the less time you spend here the better.”

 After grinding the lock open he turned to look at me. “Not that I wouldn’t mind downing a couple of pints with you lad, but a man in my position can only turn a blind eye for so long.”

 The grin on my face couldn’t be wiped off as he opened the storage room where the confiscated items from the prisoners despite the feeling of being unable to spend time with an old friend. The mere fact that he was helping me, a deserter while he was the captain of the guard for the entire city spoke more for our friendship than any single words or acts could. It was far more than what I was expecting when I first began my trek up into the foothills to the city.

 As the door swung open I laid eyes on a small collection of clothes, armour, jewellery, cloaks, hoods, furs and a small assortment of weapons. To a man in my position it appeared as glorious as the Imperial Treasury.

 “I’m not going to get you into trouble for this am I?”

 “Not any more than what I would be helping a deserter from the Legion.” He made a ‘help-yourself’ gesture. “I can look after myself quite well these days.”

 “I doubt that, especially how terrible you were at reading maps.” Stepping into the room, I began rummaging through the collection of items within. “I’m surprised we didn’t end up invading Valenwood on any of the patrols that you led.”

 “It was that one time we got lost.” The door creaked as he leaned against it and watched me shrug on a thick padded gambeson and try on a pair of braces and gloves. “And if I remember correctly you were the bloody scout for that mission.”

 The pair of us chuckled and continued to throw good-natured insults at each other as I picked out pieces of the contraband and acquired items. Judging by the layers of dust and the definite lack of prisoners I knew that these pieces had been left behind either when their original owners had been moved along on board a prisoner wagon train, or had simply been forgotten about. I purposefully chose the more common items, not wishing to draw attention to myself, but also ensuring that only the most functional pieces were placed into a small pile for me to sort through.

 “How are you in the way of septims?” Burd asked as I carefully chose a functional double-curved hunting bow, picking out the only strings that still seemed to be in good condition and testing each one in turn.

 “I have enough for a hot meal and a roof over my head if I choose to hide in a stable.” I replied honestly. The small collection of rings and coin I had acquired in the sewers had provided me with a few travelling supplies in Bleakers Way but had otherwise not gone anywhere near as far as I had hoped.

 With a grunt of exertion and a feeling of tight pain in the fresh branding on my right arm I pulled the bow to full nock, staring down an imaginary arrow and feeling pleased with myself that there was barely a tremor in my arms. The weeks of captivity and my injuries had not been overly detrimental to my strength and fitness.

 “What would you say if I provided you with 200 septims?”

 “Copper?”

 He shook his head. “ _Gold_.”

 I stopped, turning and lowering the bow and slowly releasing the tension. “Okay, now I’m concerned. You’re as tight as an Argonian’s arsehole in a blizzard. What’s the catch?”

 He bobbed his head over his shoulder in the direction of the solitary cells in the far end of the prison where the Dark Elf sat in silence. “I want you to take her with you.”

 My eyes narrowed and I gave her a very careful look over. The mere fact that she was locked away in the cells normally reserved for the more violent of prisoners was enough cause for alarm, and I somehow knew that it wasn’t to protect her from the ‘attentions’ of the usual population of the prison. She was stunningly, achingly beautiful and years within Vvardenfell also told me that she was not a regular Dunmer of Morrowind. Her cheekbones were high, but not protruding, eyes a cold yellow instead of deep red, and hair white as fresh snow instead of a dark amber or charcoal brown. Even her skin, while dark was several degrees darker again than the average Dunmer, giving the appearance of polished Ebony rather than the grey-black of soot. The tension around her was almost a physical force, a natural warning on an instinctive level that immediately brought to mind some predatory cat or lioness waiting for something foolish enough to gain her attention.

 “Again… What’s the catch?”

 “She’s dangerous.”

 I laughed. “Even a Moth Priest can see that. But she’s obviously locked up for a reason and looks bloody dangerous to me. This also means that you are trying to find a way to get her out of your hair. What did she do?”

 For a moment Burd looked embarrassed and a tiny bit nervous. “Killed a farmer and his son. Chained the old man to his bed and set fire to the cottage. She also buried his son to his neck in the outhouse, dousing him in lamp-oil and setting his face on fire.”

 My sudden curse was loud enough to not only startle Burd but also drew the Dark Elf’s attention. She looked over to me with such an intensity that I was surprised that I didn’t spontaneously combust. There was something else in her eyes though. Pity? Remorse? Desperation? I wasn’t sure, but for a moment it was though the northern winds had chilled me to the bone.

 “Why in Stendarr’s name do you want me to take her with me? I have had enough of hot iron to last me for a lifetime and I particularly don’t like the idea of death by immolation.”

 “I wouldn’t be setting some harpy on you without a reason Kaius.” He raised a hand and stifled me in mid-sentence. “While I wouldn’t wish that sort of death on anyone, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving pair than Roran and Kothon. Too many stories around them for them all to be rumours.”

 “And so you want me to take a murderess under my wing? Because of your gut feelings?”

 “Since when have my instincts been wrong about something?”

 “Well, there was that one time with the Netch Herder who turned out to be a Hlaalu Retainer…”

 “Ugh, you had to remind me. I couldn’t walk properly for a week.”

 A grin erupted across both our faces, but it didn’t last as my eyes wandered back over to the prisoner, and Burd’s grew deadly serious. “I know I owe you a favour, and this is your choice at the end of the day, but the only other way she is going to leave this prison is on the way to the chopping block.”

 For several moments I stood, staring at the lonely figure sitting behind the bars on the far end of the prison. She was dangerous, that was ridiculously obvious, but there was something alluring about her that went far beyond simple desire or physical attraction.

 “Five hundred.”

 “Four, and she can take her pick of what’s left in here.” He replied, and I felt as though that his heart wasn’t in haggling or even joking about the matter to me. I suddenly felt wrong taking money from a long-time friend, but a single look at his serious expression I knew that he didn’t see it as an issue. In fact, I suddenly realised that he truly believed that she wasn’t entirely guilty. His honour had been tempered and honed during the years in the legion and it had left him torn between her fate at his hands, and his instincts stating she wasn’t as guilty as she appeared. In that moment of making my decision, his burden had become mine and an enormous weight almost appeared to physically lift from his shoulders.

 “Prisoner transfers occur on the sixth hour every evening. No one will think twice seeing the Captain of the Guard escorting a prisoner at that time. I’ll meet you at the Northern Gatehouse and then you will be free to go where you please.” He reached down and plucked his coin purse from his belt where it hung alongside his sword’s scabbard, tossing it lightly to me. “You’ll find that’s the full amount.”

 I grasped the purse in my hand, feeling the weight and hearing the clink of the coins inside. There were very obviously gold septims in there and my jaw dropped in surprise. “You’ve been planning this for a while.”

 Burd shrugged. “Ever since she got locked away. I just haven’t had a chance before today to act. I do suggest that you go and prepare yourself for a travel to wherever you are going as by tomorrow evening you don’t want to be too close to the city in case the patrols come across you two.”

 “Burd, I…”

 “Don’t worry about thanking me you dumb bastard.” The grin on his face was the least stressed I had seen him in years. “I would’ve helped you out no matter what you had done. This way at least you will earn something resembling an honest living.”

 Our arms clasped together, hands gripping forearms in the solid grip of the legion. It had been too long since I had anyone I could depend upon, and despite all that had happened I felt confident in my path. We parted ways shortly after, as I faded into the press of humanity making their way through the city streets after leaving Castle Bruma. The sun was slowly beginning to set and the echoes of the second bell tolling from the Great Chapel of Talos still hung in the cooling air and I had preparations to make. A small collection of waterskins and travellers rations of hardtack and various dried foods were purchased with only a couple of coins from the purse. Several more paid for a sturdy cloak and a dozen arrows and their quiver. I ensured that I had a couple of various arrows, mostly broadheads for hunting the inevitable game that would allow me and my new travelling companion to live off the land as much as possible. Among other things I collected a handful of specific items; an axe for chopping wood, a well-worn scabbard for the short sword gifted by Baurus and a small collection of pouches that I could strap to my chest and around my waist for carrying everything. A steel needle, a pair of daggers, one thin and curved for cutting and skinning animals, a collection of flints and a tinderbox, tiny clay gourds with wax stoppers for herbs and other ingredients and dozens of other items all disappeared into my growing collection.

 Mostly I kept the majority of the coins, not needing to purchase much supplies or equipment as whatever I bought would then have to be carried one way or another. I preferred to travel light wherever possible, relying on my own skills to live through the wilderness and a lifetime of hunting and serving as a forester meant that I was fully capable of doing so.

 Purchasing what little I needed, and with the sun slowly setting over the towering mountain peaks I made my way to the north gate. I was considerably early by this point, but with a new travelling pack and supplies as well as equipment it gave me the time needed to repack and organise myself for at least half a week’s journey to Chorrol. My quiver was set alongside the pack, which was loaded with the handful of clothes and rations while the trio of waterskins sloshed gently under bottom pouch where their weight wouldn’t affect me unduly.

 As the Chapel bells began to toll for the 6th hour, I stood off to the side of the towering gates, looking out over the mountains and watching the clouds and mist rolls off the peaks of Pale Pass. It was a calming sight, even as the sun’s last rays of the evening were swallowed by the mountain range and darkness began to spread across the land like spilled ink. Soon owls would begin to echo their cries into the night as they searched for prey, and wolves and foxes would emerge seeking their own meals for the coming days. The night was the time of predators, and was something almost akin to a home for me as a skilled hunter.

 Footsteps echoed from within the gatehouse as the pair of individuals made their way under the yawning portcullises and the gaping murder holes in the roof. With darkness approaching there was no longer anyone outside the walls, all the wandering merchants and other assorted travellers would be bunking down in the various taverns and inns within the city. The three of us were the only individuals in sight, and only the guards stationed within the gatehouse were anywhere close to us.

 Burd stepped forward, holding a lantern in one hand and still clad in his surcoat and armour, the shorter form of the Dark Elf prisoner standing alongside. She was only a few centimetres shorter than the both of us, but the sheer force of her presence more than made up for the slight height disadvantage. She held herself high, walking as though she owned the entire world and that she was in full control of the situation despite the iron manacles binding her wrists together. Suddenly standing closer to her than I had ever before I realised that how painfully beautiful she was, even despite the attempts of her diamond-sharp personality to dissuade all those around her of the fact.

 “I trust that you are prepared.” He said to me, glancing over my equipment and momentarily staring at the unstrung bow in my left hand and the other weapons that I had collected.

 “I’m as ready as I’ve always been. You of all people should now me better by now.”

 “Heh, that is true. Did you leave any weapons behind though?”

 He knew of my opinion that you could never have too many options to defend yourself, and while I always ensured that I could move quickly and lightly I would never be found wanting for a weapon. Besides my hunting bow, and steel shortsword in its scabbard on my hip I also had a trio of knives fastened to my chest with their hilts pointing down on an angle so that within a heartbeat I could draw them.

 “These are dangerous times.” I stated simply, receiving a knowing nod in return. The news of the Emperor’s death had already reached this far north as had the sudden wave of unrest and uncertainty that had come with it.

 “That it is.” He stepped forward giving me another crushing embrace before stepping away somewhat sheepishly. “You take care of yourself brother.”

 “You don’t need to start acting like an old woman. I’ve survived worse.”

 With a light pat on the shoulder he turned back to my new travelling companion, taking out a key and unlocking the manacles around her wrists. There was a moment of murmuring conversation that was too softly spoken for me to make out between them, and then Burd had stepped aside. She stepped forward, rubbing her wrists almost absentmindedly as she looked around at the flowing darkness with an obvious sense of pleasure.

 “Travel safely you two.” He called out as he moved back inside of the gatehouse, before whistling loudly to the gatehouse guards. With grunts of exertion and the clattering and squeal of oiled metal and chains the portcullis began to grind closed. Only when the metal spikes under the bottom of the gate pressed into the carved holes in the stone floor did Burd turn and walk back through into the city with single wave to send us on our way.

 For several moments both me and the Elf stood there quietly, looking and measuring each other with appraising eyes and both seemingly unable to make up our minds about the other.

 “Well then.” I said, as the last beams of sunlight disappeared and the glowing orb of the sun finally slid behind the towering peaks. “Guess we should be on our way then.”

 Smiling in what I hoped was a confident way to her, I pulled the straps of my pack tight and placing the unslung bow over my shoulder as though it was an axe. “I’m Kaius by the way.”

 I turned and began to walk across the sloping ground, feeling the dry grasses crackle under my feet as I did so. She sniffed disdainfully, looking out over the bleak landscape of northern Cyrodiil before following after me.

 “Viconia,” she said, her accent strangely melodic. “Viconia DeVir.”


	3. The Priory

 

We made surprisingly good time, travelling quickly and I soon found myself surprised at how easily Viconia kept up with the pace I set. Most people would’ve struggled to match the marching pace of any member of the legion, especially over the broken ground as we made our way south west and purposely shied away from the main roads and tracks. But she strode ever onwards, her long legs effortlessly lengthening in stride until she was almost outpacing me. Moving with a liquid grace I found myself distracted on several occasions as I watched her move through the thickening vegetation. It reminded me all too well how long I had been away from civilisation, women and overall general companionship.

 Not that Viconia was a pleasant travelling companion. The rare times that she chose to speak were acidically sarcastic, overflowing with disdain or outright hostile. Most of the time she simply marched alongside me, keeping a respectable distance between the two of us and ensuring that her back was never turned to me. There was obviously no trust between us, which at that time suited me perfectly but for the most part we both seemed to be content travelling together.

 We made camp that night several hours travel from Bruma, the light of Masser lighting our way across the darkened landscape until midnight was upon us. Making camp in a tiny cleft in some hills we settled down for the night, not even lighting a fire to ward off the chill in the air. We slept lightly until dawn, both wary of the others presence and figuratively and almost literally sleeping with one eye open.

 Rising with the first rays of light from the dawn sun, we briefly ate, and drank from the waterskins before once again making our way further towards Chorrol. For the first day we barely even spoke to each other, Viconia especially treating my presence with a mild contempt, choosing to outright ignore me for most of the waking hours but never complaining or showing any form of weakness. She was tough, and extremely fit and for however long she had been stuck inside of Bruma’s dungeon it had obviously not unduly affected her.

 The rolling hills soon shifted into wooded forests, punctuated by clearings both natural and made at the hands of men and mer. County Chorrol, containing almost the entirety of the Great Forest was sparsely populated, containing little to no villages of substantial size but was still home to several scattered tracts of farmland and numerous logging and foresting hamlets barely large enough to qualify as such. Keeping mostly away from the Orange road and the merchant caravans and Legion patrols, we instead made our way cross-country, weaving through the gradually increasing Redwoods and Aspen trees and the knee deep ferns and bushes.

 Hunting was plentiful, and before long I had managed to strike down a pair of healthy rabbits in the late afternoon, hanging them from my belt as we travelled for the evening meal. Between them and the small collection of summer bolete mushrooms we had more than enough for a proper meal.

 As dusk approached, and several dozen kilometres of travel behind us we found ourselves a quiet portion of forest to make camp for the night. Deadwood was piled inside a circle of stones, both my new hatchet and collect of flints proving themselves invaluable as time savers and at the sun set low amongst the towering redwoods the crackle of an open fire broke the silence between us.

 I sat close to the fire, using my skinning dagger to turn over the sizzling corpses of the rabbits. Their entrails carefully buried a short distance away to stop any opportunistic scavengers from getting too close to us while we made camp. Viconia sat on the opposite side of the fire, still fully dressed and cloak and hood covering as much of her features as possible. A handful of strands of hair hung down but I could see little of her face other than the glint of her eyes under the darkness of her cowl.

 Stabbing the first of the rabbits I pulled it from the fire, stepping up and around it and holding the dagger to her hilt first. She barely seemed to register my presence to begin with, before finally reaching up with a fine, almost delicate hand to take the dagger and the hot meal from me.

 There were no words of thanks or gratitude that I was to receive, barely even a nod so I turned back, unclasping the buckles of my gambeson and pulling it and my tunic underneath off to leave me completely barechested. Viconia for her part didn’t even seem to notice, not that I was doing it for her benefit and while I too began to pull strips of hot rabbit flesh off its bones with my teeth I idly turned my shortsword over, twisting it deeper into the burning coals.

 I had several concerns, most of all was the nature of my new travelling companion, who I only trusted when she was in front of me and with a healthy distance between us. But of all my concerns the one that was consistently playing on my mind other than my concerning desire for blood was the markings on my right arm. One of the first things that my original captors did upon my imprisonment at Balmora was to press a burning brand across the mark of the Imperial Dragon that all legionaries received upon joining. While crude, the simple X mark showed enough of the Dragon to be instantly recognisable and while it was still recognisable there was the considerable danger that I could find myself back inside the Imperial Prison. This time however there would be no Emperor and his bodyguards to inadvertently provide me a means of escape.

 It didn’t make the coming level of pain any easier to bear.

 My thoughts of imprisonment and impending self-mutilation were broken when Viconia properly spoke for the first time since we left Bruma.

 “So am I to be your ssindossa then?” She asked, her eyes glowing strangely red in the darkness as she stared at me unceasingly.

 I looked up, ceasing my fidgeting with my sword buried in the coals and returning her gaze. “Ssindossa?”

 With an audible sigh she leaded back slightly, muttering under her breath. “Whore,” she eventually replied. “or slave if you prefer to quibble over words.”

 The moment of silence stretched between us and I struggled to come up with something to say. “Is that what Burd told you were to be when we left Bruma?”

 She shrugged. “No, but for what other reason would he pass me off onto you unless I was to be a plaything? That appears to be the only thing you surface dwellers wish of me.”

 “Surface dwellers?” I replied, feeling more and more confused as the conversation continued.

 “Ugh, how can you all be so stupid?” She looked away briefly to flick the remains of her meal into the darkness beyond the light’s edge. “I am not of this roofless existence. I am Drow, born in the darkness in the depths of the world. Now, cursed it seems to be stuck with the likes of you.”

 She shook her head angrily. “Shar guide me…”

 “I am not your master, and you are certainly not my whore.” I retorted, glancing down at the metal as it steadily began to glow a dull red. “In fact, you are free to continue on your way if you so desire. I’ll go halves with everything I have and bid you good luck without even a backwards glance.”

 This seemed to confuse her even more, but her gaze hardened. “I doubt that you have no desire for me. It is the one thing that all jaluk desire, especially here in this hell.”

 I snorted, loudly enough that her face darkened with anger and her scowl grew deeper. “It may have been long time since I have experienced a woman, but I would prefer to keep everything where it’s supposed to be.”

 With a scrape of metal, I pulled the sword from the coals, seeing the tip glowing a bright red-orange and grimacing at the heat and the future pain that it represented. Viconia’s sudden flash of apprehension didn’t go unnoticed, and I smiled grimly at her.

 “I’m not a threat to you.” I said simply, placing the sword back into the coals temporarily while I quickly began unbuckling one of the leather straps around my gambeson.

 “Then what is that for?” she snapped, pointing to the glowing sword.

 Folding the strap over itself I turned it into a somewhat thick gag, feeling my chest tighten and heart start to race faster.

 “It’s for me.” She looked shocked for a moment as I pointed to the legion brand. “I need to cover this so I’m not going to be recognisable as a deserter. I’m not keen on finding myself in a prison again, especially if that path leads to the gallows or a beating.”

 Her look of astonishment seemed to be more about the purpose of the dragon brand rather than the fact I was preparing to stick myself with a red-hot piece of metal. She didn’t even cringe or change expression as she saw me jam the folded belt between my teeth, pull the glowing sword from the flames and go to press it to my flesh with a great deal of trepidation.

 “Stop.” The word snapped through my concentration and I glanced at her as she rose to her feet. “I’ll be surprised if you don’t manage to cut your own throat.”

 With careful steps she moved over to me, holding out her hand for the sword. I hesitated for a moment, suddenly more concerned with giving her a weapon than her offer to burn away the marks of desertion. After a few moments I relented, handing her the blade hilt first as I had done with the knife and feeling my heart hammering into my throat with the expectation.

 “You’ll need this more than once if you don’t just want to look as though you are hiding that mark.” Her words were cold and her voice never wavered, holding the sword steady with one hand on the hilt and the other flat on the lower part of the blade.

 My entire universe erupted into waves of pain and I smelt the strangely familiar pork-stench of burning flesh. Screaming through the makeshift gag I struggled not to writhe and twist from the agony as Viconia impassively pressed it diagonally across the brand, obscuring the mark almost entirely and making it look as though I had a slashing sword cut cauterised.

 Two more times she pressed the blade against my flesh, heating the tip between each time as I sat involuntarily weeping between each self-inflicted torment. By the time she was finished my entire right arm was numb from the pain, my heart threatening to burst in my chest and three fresh burns across my bicep and forearm weeping burnt blood and fluids. The gag falling from between my nerveless lips, I stared down at the ruin of my arm, seeing the burns etched deep into my arm, but if treated properly and promptly the likelihood of permanent muscle damage was low. As she had suggested however it no longer looked as though I was purposely hiding my Legion mark but rather having to perform field aid to overcome injuries sustained in a fight instead.

 “Thank you.” I said once I had regained some semblance of control over my body. She had returned to her spot and had watched with an impassive mask for a face while I had writhed in pain.

 “You are a strange individual.” There was no hint of emotion on her features, seemingly regarding me with as much interest as a spider would an insect caught in her web.

 I didn’t reply, concentrating fiercely as I hovered my left hand over the first of the fresh burns and felt the cold tingling of magicka flow through my palm. Slowly, carefully I ran my hand over the burns, using nothing more than my pain-focussed willpower to control the restoration magicka long enough to stop the bleeding, and advance the healing by a couple of days at least.

 “So you are a student of the arcane as well as an archer?”

 With a grimace I turned slightly and looked over the burns. They were sealed and had stopped weeping blood, congealing into solid scabs that would tear and split with every motion of my arm. I had a couple of restless nights of sleep ahead of me. “I only know enough restoration Magicka to keep myself out of trouble. Healing bruises, sealing minor cuts and abrasions. That sort of thing.”

 “Maybe you aren’t as simple-minded as you appear. But it is doubtful.”

 “You don’t do humour at all, do you?”

 Her scowl returned with shocking force. “Drow do not joke. We kill.”

 Looking at her I didn’t doubt it in the slightest and we didn’t speak any further that evening, instead choosing to retire for the night in our own ways. She simply rugged up further under her hood and cloak, wrapping it around her clothes and leather armour and leaning against a tree. I similarly followed suit, but due to the agony of the fresh burns chose instead to rest with little more than a cloak to shield me from the elements, leaving my arm exposed to the cool night air and allowing the magicka a chance to assist speeding the healing process.

 I slept uneasily, dreaming of the intensity of her eyes and the growing urge and desire that was building from deep within my soul. It was no lust or anything of the sort, but a thirst far more foul and unquenchable. The fire had stared to dim by the time I finally fell into a light slumber, finding myself dreaming of rivers of blood.

 Once more we rose with the sun, eating and drinking lightly as I dressed myself back into my tattered gambeson after making a few crucial adjustments. Using another modicum of restoration magicka I managed to heal the burns enough to be able to slide my arm within the sleeve, choosing to ignore the sensation of the wounds splitting and adhering to the inside as I picked up my pack.

 Moving further into the Great Forest and out of County Bruma we were able to travel on the roads once again, making good progress for the entirety of the day and camping through the evening. Our conversations were just as stilted as before, spending most of our journey in silence. As we made camp and now that it was obvious that she had consciously chosen to tag along with me I told her of my goal to reach Weynon Priory and delivery the Amulet of Kings. The most emotion that she had shown the entire time we had been together was when I had withdrawn the Amulet from the depths of my pack and showed it to her. Her eyes glowed with an unusual golden intensity as she carefully held the gleaming jewelled amulet and golden chain, staring at it intently for several minutes before handing it back.

 “There is a powerful magic with that.” She had said simply, pointing to the amulet. “An old magic, but still potent.”

 “You seem experienced in these things.” I had replied, and as usual her distain for me was almost a physical force.

 “I have some.” She failed to elaborate any further.

 On the morning of the third day since leaving Bruma we continued along the Gold Road, finding the travel easier as the road became more greatly maintained and the forest hemming the road beginning to spread out and thin. Isolated farms appeared amongst the greenery, fighting a constant battle against the encroachment of the forest and competing for the lush soil. Several times we had to walk off the road as heavy ox-carts loaded with logs trundled their way to the handful of sawmills scattered throughout the County. It was generally peaceful, a sensation not dispelled as we came across the tiny priory within sight of the walls of Chorrol.

 It was a simple affair; a tiny stable with a handful of horses standing idly, a double story chapel and a larger building with a tiled roof well worn by the weight of the years since it’s construction. A solid appearing stone fence, waist height and who’s purpose was more for marking out the Priory’s grounds than stock control ringed the buildings, broken only by a single wooden gate that creaked in the slight breeze.

 A middle aged Breton man, standing waist deep amongst one of the dozens of gardens scattered over the priory grounds straightened up as I pushed through the gate and warily cast his gaze over Viconia and I. Having the city guard called on us, while not a situation I wished to find ourselves in would not have been surprising. My appearance alone; rough tattered leather and cloth padded armour, right sleeve missing where I had hacked it away not only to free my bow arm but to fortify the appearance of me being wounded in some fight, face covered with a light brown stubble and festooned with weapons was enough to make anyone think twice about my intentions. Viconia, while at first glance incredibly stunning to the point of outright distraction had a quiet intensity that seemed to threaten everyone with grievous harm or a painful death if their eyes lingered for too long. She too was dressed in rough leather and spun cloth, a sword clasped behind her shoulder out of the way and hilt sticking out from under the dark brown cloak and hood that she habitually kept covering as much of her features at all times.

 I raised my hand in greetings, keeping my other hand well away from all my weapons and smiling as best I could as though no to alarm the man.

 “Good morning.” I called out, seeing him stiffen slightly as I moved closer by a handful of paces. “My name’s is Kaius, and this is Viconia.” A quick motion towards Viconia and I watched his eyes glance in her direction, and decide it was healthier to look elsewhere. “We’ve come to speak to Jauffre.”

 “Brother Jauffre?” he seemed puzzled for a moment before simply shrugging and deciding that we weren’t a threat and bandits wouldn’t have announced themselves to begin with. “May I ask what you want to talk to him about?”

 “Our words are for him alone. We’re simply delivering a message to him and then intend to be on our way.”

 He nodded, brushing the dirt from the front of his robes with one hand and scratching the shaven patch of hair on top of his head. “Well then. I suppose I could take you to meet him.”

 Taking a handful of paces out of the gardens and the flowerbed he was tending to he motioned for us to follow, giving an honest smile for a handful of moments before leading us on. “Welcome to Weynon Priory. I’m Prior Maborel, head of our community.”

 We made our way down the path to the Priory proper, walking past the stable where the dumner stablehand stood in utter surprise at the two of us following after Prior Maborel. He had stopped still as he watched Viconia follow close behind me, still holding a knife in one hand and holding up one of the horse’s legs where he had been caring for the hoof when we arrived. I was quickly coming to understand that Viconia had that effect on most of those who laid eyes upon her for the first time.

 “There doesn’t seem to be many of you who live here.” I said conversationally as we made our way to the front door of the comfortable looking Priory house.

 “There isn’t.” he replied over his shoulder, opening the front door and stepping inside. “Brother Piner, Brother Jauffre, and I are members of the Order of Talos. Eronor, who we passed at the stable tends after the sheep and horses.”

 We followed him up the small flight of stairs to the upper level and I found myself in awe at the sheer number of books that filled bookshelves across every wall. The quantity represented multiple lifetimes of work and dedication to simply write so many, and I found myself wondering exactly how much history and knowledge was stored within this simple building.

 He caught me looking about the collection and smiled pleasantly. “If you have the time you are welcome to spend it browsing the collection. All are welcome here.”

 On the upper floor we made our way into a private study, where an enormous redwood desk commanded the room while being hemmed in by even more books that filled their shelving to the bursting point. A highbacked chair sat facing away from the window at the far end of the room, and seated in it, dressed in a same brown robe as Prior Maborel sat an elderly man of innumerable winters slowly leafing through a tome a thick as my arm.

 “Brother Jauffre, you have visitors.”

 At Maborel’s voice, the elderly monk looked up from his book, glancing at both Viconia and I and immediately assessing us in a heartbeat. He looked like a frail, peaceful and harmless monk, but one look into those cold blue eyes and I knew that he was definitely not all what he seemed. Those eyes were those of an archer, ruthless and calculating and I immediately felt disarmed in his presence.

 There was no sense of tension or concern from the older monk as he set aside his book, placing a thin leather strip in-between the pages to mark his progress as he looked over us further. I couldn’t help but read the book’s title, _The Art of War Magic_ ; a must read for any Imperial Legion tactician and certainly not a book for a peace abiding monk.

 Maborel nodded to Jauffre as he waved the younger monk off, standing slowly as though his joints were giving him severe discomfort from the simple movements.

 “I’m Jauffre.” He said, voice soft. “What brings you to see me?”

 Carefully glancing to ensure Prior Maborel had left, I unslung my pack from my shoulders, reaching deep within and placing the Amulet of Kings on his desk.

 The look of shock and sudden wariness was impossible to conceal, a dagger appearing in his hand as though conjured and suddenly we were no longer faced with a hunched old priest. His back straightened, shoulders squared and suddenly he stood as tall as me, lightly resting on his feet in a stance of a veteran swordsman.

 “You best explain yourselves quickly.”

 I did so, ensuring my hands remained far from my weapons and trying to ignore how Viconia glared at him with outright hostility, almost daring the obvious ex-Blade to react. I told him of how I was in prison, how the Emperor and his bodyguards attempted to escape through the catacombs and the sewers under the city but had fallen. He listened intently as I told him how the Emperor had given me the Amulet, instructed me to find him and deliver it.

 After a while he visibly relaxed, the dagger disappearing without a trace within the folds of his robes and he ran his fingers through his thinning hair.

 “By the Nine this is insane.”

 “I know that feeling all too well.” I glanced back at Viconia who had wandered off slightly to glance over some of the books on the shelves.

 With a sigh he sat heavily in the chair and looked up at me, his expression suddenly calculating and extremely serious. “I am one of the few, perhaps the only one left alive who knows of Uriel’s bastard son.”

 Gesturing about himself he began, suddenly filled with a compelling reason to suddenly voice a secret that had gone unspoken for many years. “Many years ago, I served as captain of Uriel's bodyguards, in the same capacity as the unfortunate Elis Ranault. One night Uriel called me in to his private chambers where a baby boy lay sleeping in a basket. He told me to deliver the child somewhere safe but never told me anything else about the baby. I knew it was his son, especially how from time to time he would ask about the child's progress.”

 He laughed, voice filled with bitterness. “Now, it seems that this illegitimate son is the heir to the Septim Throne. If he yet lives.”

 “Does he?” I asked, flinching as Jauffre looked back at me with those cold sharpshooter’s eyes.

 “He may. The Emperor and all of his known sons are dead and the Empire is already starting to crack and sway under the strain. It is over two years since I last reported to Uriel about the boy. If he is known to those responsible for the murders of his father and brothers, there is very much the chance that he is dead.”

 “I don’t understand why an illegitimate heir to the throne would be so important, or why the Emperor put so much importance of not only delivering that,” I motioned to the Amulet where it rested on the desk, “but finding you and ensuring that you found this child.”

 Jauffre sat in silence for a few moments, obviously thinking over everything I had told him. “Little of it makes sense to me, but there is so much that only the Emperor’s understood about the meaning behind the rituals of coronation. The Prince of Destruction he spoke of? Well that can only be Mehrunes Dagon. His own words, ‘ _Close shut the Jaws of Oblivion_ ’ certainly suggest that he perceived some threat from that terrible realm. I’m not an expect in such matters but I know that it is the general understanding that the mortal realm is protected from the daedra of Oblivion by magical barriers.”

 “The Amulet of Kings is ancient.” He continued, rubbing the slight stubble of his jawline thoughtfully. “Saint Alessia herself received it from the gods. It is a holy relic of untold power and when an Emperor is crowned, he uses the Amulet to relight the Dragonfires at the Temple of the One in the Imperial City. With the Emperor dead and no new heir crowned, the Dragonfires in the Temple will be dark for the first time in centuries.

 He shrugged. “It may be that the Dragonfires protected us from a threat that only the Emperor was aware of…”

 There was an uncomfortable pause, before he nodded to me, and cast a sideways glance at Viconia “You have performed a valuable service my friends, although I am not entirely sure of what to do with this information. Finding the heir is of utmost importance, that much is for certain but I doubt that I can simply walk him to the Temple of the One, place the Ruby Crown on his brow and call it a day. These assassins were able to strike at three different places at once, kill all three known heirs _and_ the Emperor who was escaping through a route known to less than a dozen individuals in all of Tamriel. There is something terrible at play here, and we are against a conspiracy that, if I’m truthful; is somewhat terrifying.”

 “So you are a Blade.” The statement made Jauffre raise an eyebrow and grin.

 “Yes, Baurus told you right; I am the Grandmaster of the Blades. I know I don’t look like much but discretion is our watchword. Sure, the Praetorians may preen and bluster about in their glorious armour, but we are the Emperor’s eyes and ears as well as his Swords. Which, whether you like it or not you have found yourself in this just as deep as the rest of my brothers.”

 His expression hardened to a mask of determination. “And so I find myself in need of your help.”

 “You need me to go find this bastard I take it?”

 A simple nod and Jauffre rose to his feet once more, the persona of the monk neatly packed away into the recesses of his mind and instead now replaced with the professional soldier-spy. He moved as though was half his age, the packed energy leaving his muscles humming under the tension as he moved through the study, pulling a key from within a hollowed out centre of _The Mirror_ and opening a chest under the window.

 “His name is Martin and while no longer a boy he has no idea of his heritage. He serves as a priest of Akatosh in Kvatch’s Cathedral. You must go there at once. If the enemy is aware of his existence, as seems highly likely then he is in terrible danger.”

 The squeal of barely used hinges echoed through the room as Jauffre opened the chest, revealing a small arsenal of weapons and equipment that hadn’t been used in years, but were no less effective as a result. Various items including a full suit of splint mail armour; identical to those worn by Baurus and his late comrades and a beautifully forged Katana lay within. Jauffre wasted no time in pulling most of the equipment out.

 “My resources here are limited.” He apologised, briefly lifting up one of the Swords, drawing it slightly out of the scabbard and seeming happy with its gleaming edge before sheathing it with a click of metal. “but I will help in any way I can.”

 He placed most of the items on the desk, leaving the single katana leaning against his chair and obviously not wishing to part with such a fine sword. Motioning to both Viconia and myself to the small collection of equipment and armour he seemed almost apologetic at the quality and amount he had available. “Feel free to help yourselves, but I will unfortunately be unable to accompany you. There is much to be done and I need to mobilise the Blades to meet this new threat whatever shape it may take. You must travel immediately to Kvatch, find Martin at once and bring him safely back here. By the time you return preparations will be made for his continued safety, and perhaps we may know more of what is happening.”

 “This is a considerable chance you are taking a chance with us.” Viconia said, the first words she had spoken all morning. “Why don’t you suspect us of betrayal?”

 His sudden smile was chilling to behold, and once more I realised that this seemingly frail old man wielded supreme power in the Empire. Power matched only by the late Emperor. “My dear, if you believe that you can escape the judgement of the Blades for any form of treachery then you are welcome to try.”

 Leaning forward on the desk I saw his shoulders bunch and swell with strength under the loose robes, showing that there was a body as hard as steel an under the outer surface of a harmless monk. “but you wouldn’t have been the first to try, and I guarantee you that there will _never_ be someone who’ll succeed…”

 Viconia actually seemed impressed by this, a ghost of a smile plucking at the corner of her mouth as she turned her attention to the items in front of us. There wasn’t much there that was of much use to myself, but Viconia soon added a pair of daggers and their sheaths, as well as a finely crafted belt and pack to her own meagre equipment. I did however grab the trio of quivers; filled almost to bursting with their collection of arrows tightly wrapped together as well as a fine hauberk of steel chainmail and its accompanying coif. While adding a significant amount of weight to my person, an additional 6 kilograms would be of little hindrance in comparison to the Legion armours they expected foresters to wear on patrol let alone in combat. Being trained to fight behind the lines in full Legionary Plate within an Archer Cohort if the need arose ensured that wearing anything less was a blessing.

 “You may stay the night if you wish.” Jauffre said as we made claim to whatever caught our eyes. “You won’t get far this afternoon and you’ll travel faster after a night indoors. Take this time to prepare yourselves for the journey.”

 The thought of spending my first night indoors and in a regular bed for the first time in months was too good to pass up, and while Viconia’s face betrayed nothing of her emotions I doubted she would’ve voiced any complaint at the thought. I simply nodded my thanks, gathered my arms full of the quivers and the chainmail and followed Jauffre as he showed us where we could rest our heads for the evening.

 With the better part of the afternoon ahead of us I didn’t waste any time in making preparations. I stripped most of my equipment, repacking my pack that felt considerably lighter without the emotional weight of carrying the Empire’s rarest and most irreplaceable jewellery inside it. with that simple task completed I decided to use the time available to us to exercise the weeks of captivity out of my joints.

 Dressed in little more than my tunic and pants with the leather belt from the hauberk holding it all together on my midriff I went outside into the Priory yard. It was early afternoon, barely past the 2nd bell by my estimate and I found myself whistling as I carried the collection of quivers and their contents in one hand while the other held my unstrung bow over my shoulder. With every step the quivers would bounce lightly off the scabbarded sword at my side and I looked around for a suitable place to do some practicing.

 With some assistance from Brother Piner, an Imperial and the youngest of the monks at the Priory I managed to move the garden’s straw stuffed scarecrow to the far side of the grounds. Propping the haphazard amalgamation of ancient clothes and stuffing against a tree on the edge of the forest I counted thirty paces until I was nearly up against the side of the tiny chapel. Carefully I sorted the arrows out into their different types and stuck a handful point first into the soft earth at my feet.

 The burns made drawing the bow exceedingly difficult and each time I nocked an arrow, and pulled back on the double recurved bow liquid fire would explode under the scabs, rocking its way along my arteries and causing me to grimace and groan every time I pulled it back past half nock. Even with the reduced power, thirty paces was point-blank range for someone who had grown from a child with a bow in hand. The ridiculous looking stuffed dummy had soon sprouted a handful of spikes in its chest, the fletching waving the breeze.

 I took my time, pulling an arrow out of the ground, drawing the bow back with a single smooth pull, holding it steady as I controlled my breath before loosing it with the familiar plucking sound that was shortly followed but the smack of the arrow plunging into the target’s chest. After the first five my arm was almost reduced to uselessness, the wounds cracked and bleeding where the muscles had contorted, pulled and split. Slowly getting into a rhythm I would fire five shots at what passed as a casual speed to me, carefully run my left hand over the wounds and lightly heal them with magicka, walk over to the target and retrieve the arrows I had shot before walking back and repeating the whole process.

 By the thirtieth shoot I could feel the tenseness of the wounds fading while the exhaustion of drawing back on the bow began to build. The knotted muscles of my right shoulder and arm, obviously larger than its opposite were beginning to tire rapidly. It was as I attempted to massage some of the soreness away I saw Viconia leaning against the corner of the chapel watching my actions dispassionately but with a little curiosity.

 “Shouldn’t you be resting your arm?” she said after I fired another arrow right into where the dummy’s heart would’ve been had it been flesh and blood.

 I shrugged, feeling the movement flare up a slight amount of pain. “Wounds such as this would heal in weeks, if not months if cared for normally with poultices and maggots. Any restoration mage worth his salt would have them healed in minutes, but that would mean that the muscles would be highly susceptible to weakening at best, mutations and tumours at worst.”

 Gesturing over the wounds I showed how the light application of restoration magicka was healing the burns, but from the deepest regions outwards. “This way the body heals naturally, the muscles don’t wither and will regain their former strength. In the meantime however, I’m not stuck being unable to hunt and fight in the coming weeks.”

 “You’re expecting to have to fight then?”

 I glanced at her as I nocked another arrow, breathing in and out through my nose and releasing it with a solid slapping sound. “What do you think?”

 She remained silent, watching me go through the motions again and loosing another arrow.

 “May I try?” she asked suddenly, stepping forward and pointing at the bow.

 “Have you ever used a bow before?”

 A shake of her head and some strands of snow-white hair fell out from under her hood. “Only hand crossbows.”

 She stepped in so close that the smell of her leather and ragged cloth clothing was overpowered by her own scent. Being so close to her suddenly made me feel extremely uncomfortable and I quickly handed the bow to her and stepped back hurriedly.

 “Beginners have to start at a very young age, usually as soon as they could walk.” I began, pulling one of the bodkin arrows out of the ground at our feet and handing it to her. I grinned slightly as she pulled back on the string experimentally and raised an eyebrow at the bow’s strength. “Over the course of their lives they would train with gradually larger and larger bows so by the time they reached adulthood they could draw even the greatest of bows.”

 “And is this one of the greatest of bows?” she replied mockingly, feeling the weight and power and bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly.

 “No.” I shook my head, watching and silently laughing inside my mind at the thought of her using my bow. “The Bosmer utilise bows with draw strengths anywhere up to 110-120 pounds. The Legion Standard for Foresters are 100 pound bows.”

 I pointed to the bow in her hands as she looked over to the target and steadied her breathing. “That is at least a 90.”

 The grin I was struggling to contain broke out as she heaved back on the string, barely even moving it back any further than half a hand’s span. The look of surprise on her face was the most amount of emotion, and in fact the only emotion other than anger and arrogance I had ever seen her show.

 She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes as I snorted with amusement, the glare stopping me dead and making me choose to remain silent instead. The threat in her look turned into a sudden snarl of determination as she raised the bow with her left arm outstretched, and heaved back with her right and forced it to bend a full thirty centimetres back.

 “Impressive.” I stated, honestly as she held the string back with barely a tremble. “For a beginner that’s…”

 Stopping in mid-sentence I opening gaped as she heaved back even further, her face tightening with the effort and eyes squinting as she looked at the target thirty paces away. In one strong continuous pull, straining at the weight and sweat suddenly beading on her brow she kept pulling back with arms filled with tightening muscles stronger than ebony. She did not stop until her coiled fingers holding the arrow were drawn past her ear, where she held it carefully and for several heartbeats before releasing a breath and the arrow at the same time.

 The arrow thundered into the target with armour shattering and bone breaking force. The bodkin punched through the target until the fletching was hidden in the depths of the scarecrow’s chest and the arrowhead imbedded deeply into the tree.

 She simply gave a grin, a true grin of pleasure with a single corner of her mouth, pressing the bow into my chest as I stood there staring stupefied at the quivering dummy and the arrow punched clean through it.

“Good lesson Jaluk.” She stated simply, turning and walking away without further word and leaving me to ponder just what sort of being I had found myself as a traveling companion.


	4. Kvatch

We left first thing in the morning, rising and dressing ourselves as the sun made its presence known by the greying of dawn. Clad in our armour, pouches, packs and weaponry the two of us set off, bidding Jauffre and the monks of the Priory goodbye and travelling south. All major roads and tracks to the southern colovian cities first headed east towards the city, before looping around the outskirts of the great forest in a south-easterly direction rather than brave its depths. Stories of the great dark forest were plentiful, and even stories of entire legions vanishing in the greenery were not unheard of. While not entirely civilised or even remotely tamed it was not impassable. Tiny hamlets of woodsmen and hunters eked a living within the forests depths and to the experienced it was not somewhere to be entirely feared. Respected and wary of yes, but not feared like most of those who lived in the Great Forest’s shadow. We would travel due south west, cutting through the heart of the forest to where the rolling hills and deserts of Hammerfell met the Gold Coast and the fertile floodplains of County Skingrad; a three-day journey on foot compared to eight days by road.

 My feet were wrapped in in a uniform layer of rags, stuffed tightly into my boots which meant no slippage or rubbing while I marched; a trick long since permanently ingrained into my mind from countless patrols. Having the thick leather boots being a little on the large side helped as it allowed for the eventual and inescapable swelling after the first few kilometres. Viconia had listened well to my advice and had done similar preparations despite her outwards appearance of disdain and lack of interest. While obviously not suited for such lengthy exertions she kept up the pace, never wavering or hesitating and stoically chewing through the kilometres as though pain was simply something that happened to other people.

 After her display with my bow the previous day, and what I had seen of her the week we had been together, I now knew full well not to underestimate this beautiful elf. While she only stood up to my nose in height and would’ve only weighed half of my mass if fully dressed, armoured _and_ carrying her pack loaded to the brim I knew that any fight between the two of us would not be an even fight. If I had been prone to gambling I wouldn’t have put a wooden septim against my chances of surviving anything with her as my opponent.

 Our progress was good however, easily making our way through the forest despite the places where the greenery hemmed in a little too close and we were forced to find other paths around thickets and dense shrubbery. All the while I kept my eyes roving around us, watching and ensuring that nothing was going to approach or ambush us. Cyrodiil may have been the heart of the Empire and home to men and mer for millennia but it was far from tamed. Wolves and bears prowled the forest and were some of the lesser threats to be concerned with unless it was winter and hunger drove them closer to civilisation. Minotaurs were still a danger, as were ogres, land dreugh, and other assorted beasts of the wilds. On the eastern portions of the forest goblin tribes were ever encroaching as they migrated from the depths of Blackmarsh and generally made nuisances of themselves. With all these threats in mind and as Chorrol and the other hamlets faded into the distance my bow found itself strung and in my hands more often than not.

 Viconia travelled mostly in silence through the journey, keeping to herself and keeping up with my pace. I noticed how she too constantly kept an eye on her surroundings, hand resting on the hilt of her sword while moving with a sublime grace that I had no hope of matching. Her movements were more pronounced than mine however. At every sound within the forest, whether it be the far off howl of a wolf pack, or the sudden flutter of wings as some bird flew aloft at our intrusion her head would dart in its direction, fist tightening on the hilt of her sword and eyes darting about for the threat. Eventually I managed to make her relax somewhat mostly just with my mere presence and lack of fear to the situation and we actually found ourselves in a stilted form of conversation from time to time. I learned that she had never been outside of County Bruma before and after having grown accustomed to the towering mountains and sheer cliffs of Bruma and the Pale Pass she expected everywhere to be the same. Now, trapped in the enclosing depths of green and under the roof of towering Redwoods she admitted feeling more at home where she could no longer see the sky, and feel the heat of the sun upon her flesh.

 As the day wore on I found myself growing unaccustomedly fatigued. The gnawing sensation in the back of my mind of a thirst that could not be quenched was making its presence known with far greater force each passing day. I found myself consistently parched, throat strangely dry in the late winter humidity of the forest that the mouthfuls of brackish water from the skins did little to subside. It was at this point that I knew that something was terribly wrong, a worming fear growing stronger in my gut. This sensation only grew more pronounced after walking through a tiny clearing in the forest in the middle of the day and feeling a strange tingling and burning sensation over my exposed flesh.

 The beast that had fed upon me had passed along its curse, and for hours I pondered my fate in silence. As we continued moving I tried to understand how the disease had managed to survive the medicinal herbs. The Mandrake root alone should’ve been a powerful enough to annihilate any trace of the blood plague but deep in the back of my mind I knew that I was doomed.

 Making camp in the depths of the forest for the first evening it was uneventful despite my increasingly poor sleep. The cravings were growing stronger exponentially now and my dreams were now nightmares of wanton excess and hedonistic gratification coloured in shades of red. Being so deep in the forest and the threat of danger being high Viconia agreed with my suggestion for the both of us to sleep in shifts. Taking the dusk to midnight shift I sat uneasily near the fire, staring into its swirling mass and the twisting shapes it projected as it consumed the wood. I was hunched over, left leg crossed while leaning on my bent right knee idly poking the fire with the tip of my sword. The desire for blood was growing ever more insistent until it was almost a deafening roar in my mind, drowning out all other thoughts as I struggled to comprehend how it had happened.

 It was as I poked the fire, sword gripped in the tightened ball of my right fist that I looked up the length of my bare forearm. Looking past the fresh burns that were beginning to seal properly with my magicka I saw the faintly visible streaks of an older set of injuries from the month previous. Suddenly I knew. In the mad scrabble in the darkness of that cave the beast had clawed its way down my arm as I vainly attempted to fend it off. Jaw locked open wide, incisors buried into the flesh of my throat like burning needles of agony I had struggled vainly at first, pulling my knife with my left hand while my right desperately tried to haul the creature off me. In the seconds it took to plunge the dagger to the hilt repeatedly in the creature’s withered chest it’s lukewarm blood; now a mixture of its tainted liquids and my blood had sprayed all over me. It had coated my chest but it had more importantly coated me up to the elbows, covering my fresh scratches and creating a crack in my body’s defences for the curse to whittle away at over the coming weeks.

 Not all the magicka in the world could save me from what I was becoming, and I knew that it was only a matter of time until I gave in to the vampiric curse. As soon as I fed I knew that I would be eternally damned but I had no idea what to do. Suicide was an option, but despite the darkness threatening to overwhelm me it was not something I could bring myself to do. Dying in battle would be my preferred choice if it came down to it. A storm of adrenaline, a flash of pain and then darkness would be a better alternative to an existence cursed as one of the undead.

 My fresh burns brought the image of how expressionless Viconia had been as she applied the burning sword tip to my arm. Could I rely on her to put me down when the time came? Undoubtedly so I decided with little thought. She’d cut the head from my shoulders and walk away with a clear conscience before I’d be able to finish asking her. If she thought I was a threat to her in the slightest then my head would have already been rolling on the ground for quite some time already.

 I looked over her prone form, huddled next to the fire and laying on her side facing towards me. Still fully clothed and mostly wrapped in her cloak and hood she lay with her pack under her head for a pillow, face illuminated by the crackling campfire and framed by the loose strands of hair protruding from the hood. In sleep she seemed peaceful enough, the habitual scowl that seemed permanently engrained into her features relaxing enough that her true beauty was obvious. High cheekbones, perfectly unblemished skin the colour of polished ebony, hair while gradually becoming more and more tangled as we travelled still seemed to remain straight and flow as she moved. Laying there peacefully, one hand tucked under her pack for support, the other resting lightly on her curvaceous hips she was serene and tantalisingly beautiful.

 But my attraction to her was growing darker with every passing hour. I found myself unintentionally staring, eyes gazing up over the tiny strips of flesh that were not covered by the cloak, hood or armour. While little was visible beside a single collarbone, neck and face it was enough that I could easily see the slight depression where her smooth skin of her neck reached her shoulders. In sleep, and even with her light breathing the rise and fall of her chest revealed the vein running under her skin from collarbone to jaw.

 Time seemed to compress and my sight narrowed to that spot of flawless skin, where the throb of her heart made the tiniest of movements in her throat. My mouth was suddenly drier than an Elsweyr desert as I subconsciously felt the _dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum_ of her heart in the pit of my stomach. Eye twitching, fingers clenching tighter around the hilt of my sword until I felt my knuckles creak I fought back the overwhelming urge to leap upon her, press my mouth to her neck and _bite_ …

 The glint from under her hood caught my attention and my attention snapped back into reality as I realised that her eyes were open. Like a deer instinctively sensing the eyes of a wolf upon it, she had woken from her light slumber and now looked accusingly into my eyes with anger shining behind them.

 “See something you desire?” she said softly, voice equal parts alluring and dangerous. Seemingly of her own accord her hand ran lightly down the toned flesh of her neck and chest that was visible under her clothes.

 My breath caught and I suddenly felt as though my heart had indeed ceased beating. For a moment I sat perfectly still, as though carved from granite before her face twisted into the all-too familiar expression of feral hatred. Her lips, peeling back from white teeth that gleamed in the darkness formed a snarl at me like a starving lioness.

 “You will know your place Jaluk.” She hissed threateningly. “Now avert your eyes elsewhere lest I do it for you!”

 I looked away, blood rushing to my face in a bloom of heat and the bloodlust fading with it. She rolled over into a sitting position, flicking the few wayward strands of hair out of her face and glaring at me as though she sought to stop my heart beating with a look alone. “You best get some sleep while you can, for I doubt that I will gain any further rest with you feasting your eyes on me.”

 Attempting to murmur a poor excuse of an apology that was stopped before it escaped my lips by her thunderous expression, I lay down with my back to the fire and her and struggled to snatch some fitful hours of sleep. Between the guilt of being caught looking at her, and the hellish cravings that staring at her had awoken within me I woke up even more fatigued and drained than before. My time was running out quickly and I knew it would not be long before I lost myself wholly to the growing bloodlust.

 Once again we awoke at dawn, dressing and shouldering our packs for the day ahead. This time we travelled a little more swiftly, both emboldened about the fact that we were reaching the half way point on our journey and that my growing desire for blood was driving me ever onwards voraciously. By the time the sun reached its zenith I was constantly clawing at myself mentally, using every trick and skill to avert my mind from the overwhelming desire for blood and the growing perception of Viconia’s heart beating no more than a dozen paces away. While I hoped that it was nothing more than hallucination somehow I knew that it was most definitely not. I could _feel_ her heart beating, a rhythmic tattoo that beat against the barriers of my mind like the sea eroding an ancient coastal fortress. It was only the sudden sighting of a small herd of deer in a thinning part of the forest that broke through to my diseased mind.

 Running purely on instinct I motioned for Viconia to stay where she was, watching with pleasant surprise how she slowly lowered herself down below the height of the shrubs as not to alert the herd of our presence. I carefully began to pick my way carefully through the vegetation, pulling the string loops over the horn-tips at the end of its limbs. One of the deep-tanged broadhead arrows slotted into the string, the fingertips of my right hand gripping the arrow with thumb pinching it tight. Carefully stepping through the shrubs and leaf litter I ensured that not a single sound from my passage or my equipment was made to startle the deer away. The forest was almost entirely silent to outsiders, but as I stealthily advanced forward I could hear the wind in the trees, the birds resting on their high branches and the soft sounds of smaller creatures in the undergrowth. Moving ever closer to the deer I kept my eyes away from them, looking only through my peripheral vison to ensure that they didn’t spook from the sensation of being gazed upon like Viconia had the night before.

 Within 80 paces I stopped, gazing indirectly at the small herd and picking my target. Carefully and slowly, moving in time with the swaying bushes as the wind plucked at them I raised my bow and controlling my breathing. Completely ignoring the protests of my wounded arm I drew back to the ear, holding it steady and aiming not with my eyes but with my mind as I willed the arrow into its target.

 The slap of the bowstring against the leather bracer protecting my left forearm and wrist was the first audible sound I had made. The arrow flew through the air, straight and true and punched into the side of one of the younger does. With a clean hit through the lungs it dropped with barely a sound and the others stopped in mid motion before bolting away into the undergrowth. I watched for a moment, nocking another arrow if in case against all odds my quarry managed to rise with a such a wound and try to escape. Supremely confident that it wouldn’t be rising with such an injury I stood to my height and hurriedly made my way over to it to see the results of my handiwork.

 The doe was wounded but not quite dead. The arrow had punched cleanly into its side, the design of the arrow head slicing arteries and veins and cutting through its skin with almost no resistance. I may have missed the heart but the wicked nature of the arrow meant that it would soon bleed out.

 But I stopped in my tracks at the sight of the arrow lodged deep into it’s flesh. Blood, bright red and arterial pulsed from around the shaft protruding from its hide and I found my gaze locked upon the ruby flow. Sickeningly the deer tried to get up and move, pitifully incapable and with flecks of blood puffing into the air with every laborious breath. I moved purely by instinct, my skinning dagger finding its way into my hand without conscious thought and kneeing over the dying animal.

 The dagger pressed into its throat, slicing deeply and with little resistance cutting the major neck artery in a wash of blood. For what seemed to be an age as time slowed to a crawl I found myself staring, watching as the animal went about bleeding to death from the mortal wound. The desire to drink was overpowering, the smell of the liquid permeating the air and constricting my throat and lungs with its fragrance and before I could even think to stop myself I had hunched over the creature’s prone form and fastened my lips around the gushing wound.

 Warm liquid welled into my mouth and throat and I drunk as though a man dying of thirst coming across an oasis. The blood jetted into the back of my throat and I could hear an animalistic groan rumble from deep within my ribcage as I sucked away, teeth sinking into the warm deer flesh as I sought to gain greater purchase on its neck. It struggled fitfully at the intrusion, kicking feebly as all strength was leached away before its heart finally stopped beating.

 With the sudden lack of movement from the deer whatever hold my unnatural desires had over me vanished, and I found myself spiting a wad of hot blood out onto the ferns nearby, desperately trying to rid myself of the taste and the self-loathing. While strangely, sickeningly satisfying it was nowhere near what my body truly desired but instead serving as though a few drops of wine to the lips of a drunkard. It was enough to satiate me for the short term, but I knew that it wouldn’t keep the darkness at bay for long.

 Quickly cutting into the deer while it was still warm and supple, I carved several large pieces of flesh away. A couple of kilograms of steaming deer flesh was soon attached to the pair of hooks attached to my pack for this very purpose, the cooling essence of life dripping onto the forest floor in shining streams. Swigging from my water-skins I washed as much of the blood out of my mouth until the tang had gone and I was satisfied that my teeth were no longer stained pink. Conflicting emotions wrestled for control within me as I stood and made my way back to Viconia, but there was no denying the overwhelming need for _more…_

 That night we feasted on venison. Viconia seemed to thoroughly enjoy the taste as she ravenously devoured her roasted meal, white teeth gleaming and uncomfortably reminding me of how I had killed the animal. Like most of the day we sat in silence, both seemingly looking everywhere else except at each other but there were at least the first signs of initial trust growing between us. At least as far as me not waking up with a cut throat or being set on fire, and so far she hadn’t had to contend with me attempting to force myself on her while she slept. We were still undoubtedly wary around each other, but not so much as worrying about going to sleep or turning our backs to the other.

 The camp we had made was on the outer edge of the Great Forest, giving a clear view across the rolling hills and rocky plateus of the southern highlands. There in the distance a rise of rock dominated the land, raising the construction of stone and brick upon it above the surrounding fields and farms. Our destination was still almost a full day’s journey away but even from this distance the sight of the city of Kvatch was almost humbling, giving us strength for the last hours of marching.

 “Did that guard tell you why I was locked away?” Viconia said, wiping the fat of her meal away on the corner of her cloak.

 “You murdered a farmer and his son.”

 My reply seemed to satisfy her for a moment, and her gaze hardened at the memory. “When I awoke to find myself in this living hell I had truly expected to be dead.” She began, not looking at anything in particular and idly drumming her fingers on the hilt of a knife.

 “The first time the sun rose I found myself in agony, skin blistering and peeling as I sprinted like an animal in search for shelter. Only pure luck allowed me to stumble into a cave. It was more a cleft in the side of a hill than anything but it was shelter enough, at least for the first days until I regained enough strength to venture outside.”

 “I will admit, I do not have your skill in hunting the beasts of this land but I managed to find berries that weren’t deadly, and use my own skills in the search for meat.” She looked at me with her strangely glowing yellow eyes, holding a deceptively dainty hand up for me to see it suddenly begin glowing as blue curls of lightning began to coil around he fingers like smoke. The mild electric discharge set my teeth on edge until she made the tiniest of gestures and it faded into nothingness. “The nights of freezing cold, and the days of flesh scalding light kept me hidden in that tiny hollow for days until I felt strong enough to brave the day. I would forage for berries and other edibles in a world where everything was strange and dangerous, using nothing more than my own skill with magicka to protect from the beasts prowling the rocky hills that threatened me and hunting those that did not. It was weeks until I saw another person, and almost just as long before I allowed them to know of my presence.”

 Her gazed shifted almost imperceptibly, brow furrowing ever so deeper and she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “In the Underdark, treachery is the normal course of events, the end to which all paths eventually lead. After weeks of interacting, of mild trade and discourse between us when the betrayal finally came it was of no surprise. Taken prisoner, forced into menial servitude, _violated…_ ” the sheer level of spite in that singular word was enough to make me flinch “It was as much as I was expecting but simple and crude to my expectations. It did seem to surprise them when I enacted my revenge the first chance that came.”

 “To think that those fools thought that merely burying me alive was enough to bring death. The insult was almost more grave than their poor attempt to snuff my life. I started with the boy, his father listening to his screams as I broke his bones and crushed him into the pit, burying him deep into the latrine but not trying to suffocate him like they had with me. His father couldn’t do anything but listen after I chained him to his bed with the same chains they had used on me. His death was neither quick nor painless but I watched until the hut was naught but ash, almost curious to see if he could escape his bonds before the fire consumed him. His son watched as well but didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He too begged and cried when I came for him with the lantern.”

 The look of utter horror and morbid interest on my face caught her gaze and she stopped, looking at me with a face highlighted by the glowing flames. Her hood was down, letting her hair flow in the slight evening breeze as she told her story of death and suffering. “Why are you telling me this?” I eventually replied as the silence seemed to drag on for eternity.

 “I’m telling you this so you are fully aware of what will happened when you betray me.” She said simply, the threat hanging on every word like poison on an assassin’s dagger.

 “And what makes you think that I’ll betray you too?”

 The quizzical look that came across her face was not the reaction I was expecting. “Betrayal is as inevitable as death itself. There is no escaping it, merely prolonging the inevitable.”

 “Then why stay with me?”

 She laughed, an honest laugh despite the darkness underlying it. “Where else would I go? Should I simply wander this hell of stone and greenery until someone else deems to use me for their pound of flesh? At least with you I can learn more about this land and be able see your perfidy ahead of time and be ready for it.”

 “Then why didn’t you resist when the guard came to put you in prison?”

 “If I resisted then they would have just slew me where I stood. Although if I’m honest I am still surprised that they didn’t do so where they realised what had happened.” She shrugged, her long hair moving with the rise and fall of her shoulders. “I am not willing to simply lay down and die, especially for any male who thinks himself my equal.”

 “Well in that regards we are not that similar.” With a flick off into the darkness I threw a chuck of gristle from the last of my meal, wiping my hands and face on my cloak like she had before. “I am not going to sit back and wait for death to claim me. If I have to meet it head on then I will, but I will not be caught skulking and living in fear of it.”

 Another smile raised the corners of her mouth, but still somehow not managing to reach her eyes.

 We sat in silence for a while, watching as the night grew deeper and the clouds crawling across the sky and covering the stars and moons from view. A storm felt as though it was building towards the coast, many kilometres away to the south and west, and to the north the great plains and deserts of Hammerfell would be growing cold. Viconia concerned me but with the gnawing darkness growing within my mind I had other things to worry about than the duplicitous siren seated on the other side of the fire. I knew that it would not be long until the sun began to affect me just as bad as her first days in finding herself in Cyrodiil and as the far away storm began to growl I somehow knew that the worst was yet to come.

 It had seemed like I had merely placed my head on my pack for an instant before I was awoken by a sharp series of kicks to my legs and feet. Waking groggily and mind numbed from the short hours of rest and dreams of blood and desire I looked up at Viconia as she stood above me, waiting for me to regain consciousness.

 The sky was still dark, not even the grey of predawn on the horizon but the fire had begun to burn into a dull red of hot coals. Viconia was fully dressed as she had been every morning she had awoken me to continue on our journey but this time there was an obvious tenseness about her.

 “Something’s wrong.” She stated simply, motioning towards the south.

 Rolling onto my side and looking about the camp I blinked the sleep from my eyes, still groggy and feeling exhausted from the intensity of my dreams. The thirst was growing worse and worse but as I looked out over the darkened landscape the urges suddenly vanished in a surge of unease.

 Rolling banks of clouds had rolled over us and blotted out the stars while I had slept, seemingly lowering the roof of the world to only a few hundred metres above our heads. With no Moons or stars to light the sight before us it appeared as a featureless expanse of nothingness except the glowing cluster of lights far off in the horizon.

 Throbbing a hateful red pulse into the sky, the far off sight of our destination glowed with an unusual intensity from its spire of rock. It pulsed and moved with the breeze, shifting and swaying slightly in the distant kilometres between it and our position on the edge of the Great Forest. For several minutes I stared, feeling the gnawing pit of worry open further within my guts and I found myself inexplicably donning my travelling clothes, shrugging on the thick gambeson and hurriedly dressing myself in my chainmail.

 “Looks like neither of us are getting a full night’s sleep.” Viconia muttered to herself as she began to place the last handful of items she had near the fire into her pack.

 “How long ago did you notice that?” I asked, throwing my cloak around my shoulders and wrapping a bandanna of cloth around my forehead.

 “About an hour ago. I thought it was a trick of the clouds but it’s steadily getting more noticeable.”

 I ran my fingers through my hair, slicking it back before pulling the steel coif over my head where it rested against the bandanna. My cloak was soon wrapped around my shoulders, clasped to my throat and covering most of the chainmail from the morning dew. Soon I was covered and wearing every piece of armour and clothing I owned and Viconia noticed that obvious fact.

 “It looks to me that the city is on fire.” The gnawing fear in my belly was getting worse now as I mentally checked off all my equipment, ensuring that my belt, pouches and pack were all attached securely.

 “There is the taste of magicka on the wind.” Her eyes were glowing a cold yellow light now as she weaved her fingers through the air, tracing out intricate patterns out of nothing. “Unless some surface dwelling excuse for a mage exploded I doubt that it’s as simple as arson.”

 There was definitely magicka involved, while not as attuned or experienced as Viconia the pressure in the back of my skull told me more than what my eyes could. Something was terribly wrong and we set off hurriedly, kicking soil over the hot coals and not waiting for dawn before we set off.

 With undue haste we travelled in the darkness, witnessing the rising mists floating out of the ground as they consumed the world around us. For some time I grew concerned with the thought of travelling in the wrong direction but twilight announced the rising sun and allowed us to continue our path south. We marched in silence, our pace rapid as the kilometres were chewed through alarmingly quickly. Hooded and cloaked, the swirling mists stuck to us until we were both gleaming with moisture and I found myself licking my lips every dozen paces an overwhelming thirst. With every step that I placed in front I could feel the desire of drink liquids not of water of alcohol but before I realised it I had thankfully slipped into the strange trance that all Legionaries did while on the march. The desires of the body faded, all conscious thoughts removed until the hollow shell of flesh and bone was left to concern itself with nothing more than putting each foot before the other. In doing so the kilometres of the journey were left in the dust and soil behind and my mind seemed to slip away, including for the most part the desire for blood. I knew I was grimacing in concentration and beside me Viconia was in a similar state as she ignored the body’s desire for rest and comfort and moved with all the determination of a veteran legionary.

 Dawn broke and the sun rose slowly as we marched on through the swirling mists. The chill in the air was nothing compared to the frozen north but the faint traces of light that penetrated through the fog was enough to cause discomfort to me. So far gloves, cloak and hood were enough to ward off the sun’s vicious embrace but I was fast running out of time.

 As the early morning began to give way to midday the fog began to lift across the broken spires and plateaus that surrounded Kvatch. Ancient soil allowed bountiful harvests to be sewn into the hills, a soil that was thick, black and rich under the carpet of knee high grasses and shrubs. It would’ve been serene and calm if not for the shifting wind bringing the hints of death and destruction as it rolled over us in the direction of Hammerfell.

 The taste of death and fire caught in the back of my throat, with hints of sulphur and rot that went little towards scrubbing the taste of copper from my tongue. It was growing stronger now and soon Viconia and I found ourselves trading expressions of concern and confusion at what was occurring. She was testing the air every few minutes, eyes glowing as she felt out the rolling waves of magicka in the region that battered into my mind and threatened to develop into a headache.

 It was as the mist lifted that we finally laid eyes on the terrible sight before us, our destination rising out of the rolling cloudbanks and revealing its terrible beauty for all to see. Still over an hour’s travel to the south, billowing swirls of smoke and flame ejected themselves into the heavens and I found myself suddenly feeling as though I was standing before the awe-inspiring face of Vvardenfell’s Red Mountain again. The towering spire of rock, forty metres high and capped with the stone buttresses of the city walls reached high above us, almost appearing as though the ancient volcanic plug the city had been built upon had opened its throat and roared.

 Scattered about us the tiny hamlets and collections of farms were rapidly vacating. Their occupants had woken in the early hours of the morning to behold a scene of destruction and wished to be no part of it. We appeared to be the only individuals heading towards the city engulfed in flames as dozens of farmers and their families loaded wagons or simply gathered whatever they could carry before scattering to the winds. Even as we got closer and passed some of the groups they didn’t look in our direction, choosing to ignore the sight of the Drow and Imperial dressed and readied for conflict. Ash was floating on the breeze, bringing with it the feel of doom and destruction and soon we found ourselves almost jogging and moving steadily as we made our way to the southern wall and the only gates into the city.

 Built on the plateau of basalt and granite Kvatch had long since been the site of an important trade hub and fortification between Counties Skingrad and Anvil. Its proximity not only to Valenwood but Hammerfell ensured that it had grown rich and prosperous. Its walls were thick and strong, its militia and Guard well equipped and markets packed with merchants and traders from cities such as Rihad to the north west and also caravans carrying the wares of an Empire thanks to the Port City of Anvilto the west. All this had proven to be worth naught however as we climbed the cobbled road up the slope towards the city’s entrance and found ourselves seeing with our own eyes the death and destruction that had befallen the city.

 Handfuls of people, soot staining their clothes and skin made their way along the road towards the east. While three days’ travel on foot the throngs seemed determined to reach the safety that County Skingrad seemed to offer, mostly ignoring Viconia and I as we moved the opposite direction with hands on our weapons. For the most part the crowds seemed to ignore us, heads bent under the weight of the events, eyes staring and framed in faces of terror and shock and clutching what few meagre possessions they had managed to take with them from the burning hell at their backs. Babes swaddled at their mothers’ chests cried relentlessly, their parents too shocked or insensible themselves to calm the infants. Children sobbed, family members cried in anguish of those that were not by their sides and not since I had taken part in counterinsurgency raids against ashlander tribes had I seen such devastation and loss. This was the sight of a city dying, but what worried me more than anything was that out of the thousands who lived within the walls, only this small collection of refugees staggered down the cobblestones away from what had been their home.

 “What in Shar’s name is happening here?” Viconia asked, stepping away from a small family group of argonians with distaste clear on her features. “I didn’t expect us to find ourselves in the middle of a war.”

 My bow was in my hands, knuckles creaking under the strain as I looked about for anyone willing to explain what was happening. Too often I saw nothing more than the wide open eyes of those in shock and most seemed to be too lost in their own worlds of misery to even acknowledge my presence.

 “The Empire is at peace.” I replied, moving from group to group and trying to get any of their attentions long enough to tell us more about what was happening. “There is nothing to even suggest an invasion or an attack like this.”

 “Except the death of your Emperor and his sons.”

 The thought did not sit quietly in my mind as I looked about at the devastation and the billowing clouds of smoke and ash rising into the storm clouds. This was a scene of conquest and destruction that the Empire had not experienced in centuries and I knew that this and the Emperor’s death was no coincidence. Soon I was almost jogging up the slope, trying to find someone, anyone who would give us an explanation as the crowds began to thin and only a handful of stragglers remained.

 I moved from person to person, asking and demanding answers that no one seemed willing or able to give. Descriptions of beasts and a monster of iron and flame were repeated in various ways but no one seemed to know anything of what was occurring. Not with any certainty anyway. It was only when we almost came within sight of the southern walls that a young Altmer, face covered in soot and suffering a fierce burn down his arm stopped before me with a now all-too-familiar expression of shock.

 “You need to run.” He said, rolling the words out of his mouth while staring at me blankly. “While there’s still time.”

 I gripped him by his unwounded shoulder, pulling him back slightly as he tried to continue past. “Run? From what? What is happening up there?”

 He looked at me, eyes finally focussing on me and not on whatever thoughts filled his mind. “Gods’ blood, you don’t know. Do you?”

 There was a pause and he swallowed, glancing back the way he had come and shuddering. “Daedra overran Kvatch in the night!”

 A lumpy ball of ice settled into my stomach and my eyes followed his up into smoke and ash spreading and corrupting the clouds. I gripped his arm tighter, holding him as I felt every muscle in his body scream to pull away from me and flee after the others. “Tell me everything.” I stated simply, seeing him nod in affirmation.

 “There were glowing portals outside the walls!” he began, suddenly rushing his words in an effort to have my grip on his shoulder released. “Gates to Oblivion itself!”

 Beside me Viconia had moved closer, listening intently and glancing between me, the Altmer and the flame wracked skies above us. “There was a huge creature… something out of a nightmare and it came right over the walls blasting fire. They swarmed around it… killing _everything_ …”

 “Go and see for yourself!” The fear was threatening to overwhelm him as he gestured wildly in the vague direction of the city. “Kvatch is a smoking ruin! We’re all that’s left, do you understand me!? Everyone else is dead!”

 My disbelief was obvious on my face and both Viconia and I seemed to share the same opinion of the impossibility of his words. We had only passed a few hundred souls making their way to the east, and there would obviously be more heading the opposite direction towards Anvil as well as those scattering to the four winds. It was a terrifying thought that a city of over 90,000 was now left as a couple of hundred terrified individuals huddling and fleeing as quickly as they could.

 I turned back to him and gave him a withering stare. “How did you manage to escape then?” My snarl seemed to strike some semblance of control back into his fragile sanity.

 Recoiling from me but failing to escape my grasp he stammered, almost whimpering at the cold expression on my face that matched Viconia’s own. “It was Savlian Matius, the Gate commander and some of the other guards… They helped us escape over the walls before cutting their way out through the Pilgrim’s Gate. Savlian says that they can hold the road until the Legion arrives but I don’t believe him. Nothing can stop them!”

 I let the elf go, releasing my grip on his shoulder and giving him a push on his way as his fear returned with brutal force. “If you’d seen it, you’d know! They’ll be here any minute I’m telling you! Run while you still can!”

 On unsteady legs he teetered for a moment before rushing off down the road after the others. It was then I knew that I was faced with another choice, whatever waited for us at the gates of Kvatch was unlike anything seen before. It was so easy to consider simply turning on my heel and following the streams of wounded and broken civilians to safety.

 Instead I turned and looked at Viconia, who stood by my side with her usual expressionless mask as she regarded the last handfuls of refugees flowing around us with disgust. The site of such tragedy didn’t affect her in the slightest but I could see the tenseness that had filled her muscles with latent energy.

 “What do you think?” I asked her softly, seeing surprise on her face briefly before she smothered it.

 A grin broke through, one that was vicious and terrible to behold on such a beautiful face. “I don’t run.” She said simply, drawing her sword carefully and completely ignoring the looks of alarm from those walking past.

 “I never thought you would.” Carefully I strung my bow, feeling the tension running through it mirroring that in my muscles. I may have deserted but I would not simply retreat in the face of enemies, no matter how outrageous or impossible they had been claimed to be. Without pause we both had turned and began to lightly jog up the hill, pouches slapping against our bodies and chainmail jingling with every step.

 The sight that awaited us on the top of the rise was incomprehensible. Towering above the walls and burning with ferocious hellfire, a yawning portal sat impossibly in the cracked and broken ground. Obsidian spikes rose up as though they yearned to drag down the heavens themselves, and everywhere the blackened and scorched remains of those unlucky few who had been outside the gates when the event occurred lay where they had fallen. Terrible and horrifying the monolithic doorway into Oblivion was easily thirty metres tall, framed by fingers of magma-scorched stone that was somehow glossy and non-reflective at the same time. Ethereal flames licked and flowed up its surface, all the while roaring like a glacial storm approaching from the Sea of Ghosts with an unmatched ferocity.

 Everywhere I looked death and destruction was present. The crumbled remains of what I could only assume were other portals were scattered about in front of their sole remaining sibling in front of the City’s primary gatehouse. While normally this wouldn’t have prevented escape I could see where the flame blackened stones of the other two minor gates had collapsed and fused together into jumbled heaps of masonry and dust, their metal portcullises blasted with such incredible heat that steel had flowed as water. Ropes near the small eastern gate hung slackly from the walls where those few lucky survivors had managed to escape with the aid of the city Guard but it was obvious that no one else going to be able to utilise this method of escape.

 Nearer to the blazing portal the last handful of survivors were making their stand in a ramshackle barricade made from a collection of wagons and trade goods. Several of the flatbed wagons had been overturned, resting on their sides and spoked wheels and acting as walls where barrels and chests had been placed in-between them to hinder passage. The low laying natures of the chests, crates and barrels allowed the collection of armed men and women to fire a motley collection of bows and crossbows at the darting inhuman forms of their attackers.

 Both Viconia and I initially stopped in our tracks at the sight. Men and women, dressed in everything from the steel hauberks and tabards of the city guard, to brigandine and leather of caravan guards and even the full steel plate of a travelling knight were hunched behind the barricades desperately fending off what were unmistakably daedra. As we rushed forward I saw one of the armoured fighters go down under the horns and claws of the frill-headed reptile, his screaming plucking at my ears as it began to disembowel him in a frenzy of motion. Other hellish creatures swarmed about the handful of defenders, the tiny impish forms of scamps; recognisable from my previous experiences against Dunmer Daedra worshippers leapt and cavorted about. They gibbering incessantly, only pausing to throw burning bolts of fire at whoever they spotted with questionable accuracy.

 The defenders seemed to rally and push back, several of their number firing bolts and arrows into daedra flesh with accuracy born of desperation. The lizard thing dropped with several shafts jutting from its flesh but not succeeding on stopping it from slaughtering the man underneath. A scamp fell on its side as an arrow punched through its throat, it’s keening loud enough to make me grind my teeth at the sound. Everywhere there seemed to be foes and Viconia and I found ourselves rushing across the scorched ground to assist.

 My wounds forgotten, I raised my bow and began hurling barbed shafts into any daedra that I could see, firing as quickly as I had even been trained without reducing my accuracy. A trio of scamps went down hard, thrown backwards and punched off their feet as the broad head arrows made a mockery of their infernal skin. One of their kind dropping with a squeal as an arrow rammed itself into its mouth with a puff of blood.

 Viconia was almost more terrifying in battle than the creatures she faced. Breaking into a run she sprinted across the ground as though her feet didn’t need to touch the ground. Sword clasped in her right fist, her left hand was free to gesture wildly as she charged the foul creatures and blasted one of the other reptiles apart in a explosion of gore. Fireballs filled the air around her but she simply flicked them aside as though swatting away insects with bursts of magical power or blocked them on a gleaming shield of energy. Each bolt of fire would either splash away from her or patter harmless off the ward she threw up and before the foul beasts could do any more she was amongst them.

 Twirling and twisting, never stopping or ceasing in her attacks she flowed with a liquid grace and not ceasing in killing while any enemies remained in range. A scamp dropped howling as it’s guts opened and spilled its foul slimy entrails everywhere, another was fried with a well-placed bolt of lightning and several others lost their limbs in spiralling arcs of ichor. She could not be stopped by such creatures and between her, myself and the handful of survivors who rushed forward to support us there were few daedra remaining.

 I was fascinated by the collection of people who had chosen to make their stand before the roaring gate to Oblivion. City guards, mercenaries, and travelling warriors stood side by side with cooks, bakers, daytalers and beggars. As the guards and more professional individuals hacked and fought with all their might and skill, the everyday citizens fought just as hard, if not more so against their daedric adversaries. As I fired another arrow into the chest of a squealing scamp I watched as the portly figure of a blacksmith, still dressed in his apron and thick leather gloves charge the burning figure of a flame Atronach as it glided and danced across the ground. Crying with fear and determination he ignored the creature’s fiery blasts, deflecting one of its fireballs with the saucepan lid he wielded as though it was a buckler before getting close enough to smash it bodily into the ground his smithing hammer.

 The sounds of battle died off as the last of the daedra were brought low. Dozens more bodies of similar creatures were scattered between the gate and makeshift barricade, most of which occupying a wide semi-circle around the position and the handful of defenders who still survived. As far as I could see less than forty were left standing with a pitifully small amount of wounded laying behind the protection of the overturned carts and wagons.

 One of the guards, armour stained and its wolf’s head tabard torn and burned staggered over to Viconia and I, glaring at the two of us with a mixture of annoyance and pity. He was exhausted, shield hanging limply on his arm where it had obviously been for hours now, and his sword was so heavily stained with daedric blood that he struggled to force it into its scabbard.

 “This is no place for you.” He stated simply, exhaustion removing any trace of pretence from his voice or mannerisms. “You should get out of here.”

 “We came to help.” I replied, moving forward and slinging my bow over my shoulder. “I’m Kaius and this is Viconia.”

 “I’m Commander Matius, and I don’t really care who you are.” With a grimly glove and sleeve he wiped his forehead and did little more than rearrange the filth plastering his skin. Grunting, he placed the nasal helm back over the padded coif protecting his head and motioned at the towering maw of the Gate. “But if you are stupid enough to hang around then it’s your funeral.”

 He extruded a bitter form of determination, the loss of the city and all that had happened obviously overwhelming him to the point pushing him to his utter limits. However, unlike the dozens if not hundreds of fleeing refugees streaming away from the city he and these few had chosen to make their stand.

 “What’s the plan then commander?” My question resulted in a hacking laugh of one who’s lungs now contained more than their fair share of ash and dust.

 Spitting and knuckling the phlegm from his lips he shrugged. “The plan? We’ll try to hold our ground, that’s what the plan is. If we can’t hold this barricade then these beasts could march right down the roads and slaughter everyone they come across. We have to try and protect the few that are left. It’s all we can do until the Legion arrives.”

 “You’ve sent for help?”

 “Of course we’ve sent for help! Did someone take a dump in your skull? A runner was sent to the western messenger post as soon as we got over the walls. But it’s at least a four-hour march from Fort Wariel so I don’t expect to see a Legionary any time soon.”

 “Well you have one here now.” I replied bitterly, ignoring the sense of cosmic amusement underlying my words. “Just what in the name of the Divines happened here?”

 “We lost the damned city, that’s what happened.” He sighed as the toll on his body of obviously fighting for a dozen hours began to wear away at his reserves of willpower. “It was too much, too fast. We were overwhelmed and could barely get anyone out. Talos’ balls, we could barely even get ourselves out and there are Gods-knows how many people are trapped in there.”

 “I can’t believe that the entire city is dead. There will be survivors.”

 “Well some made it into the Cathedral from what little we saw from the walls but dozens, if not hundreds were just run down in the streets. For all I know the Count and some of his guards are still holed up in the castle.” His entire body shook with rage as he gazed across over the walls and the gate blocking the last entrance into the city. “We’re too exhausted from the fighting and there are too few of us to scale back over the walls and get to the castle, let alone retake the city.”

 I looked at him and felt my own conviction begin to burn brightly in amidst all of the death and carnage. “Well, you have us at your command. We’ll do whatever we can.

 “Well unless you can find a way to shut that damn thing and give us access to the city again you’re going to be stuck holding the barricade with the rest of us.”

 “It is possible.” Viconia suddenly said, her voice filled with an unusual echo as she stared off into the blazing portal. Both the guard commander and I took an involuntary step backwards as the crackling energies around her seemed to perceptibly build. With eyes glowing brightly in the enforced twilight of smoke and haze she twitched involuntarily and withdrew her senses from whatever seer ability she had been utilising. “The portal is sustained by an artefact within the realm beyond the gate. Removing it will close the gate.”

 “That’s tantamount to suicide!”

 I couldn’t help but agree with him even as Viconia continue staring and studying the portal. “Has anyone else tried entering the gate?”

 “Commander Ausonius led a counter attack after we had climbed down the walls with a small contingent of the town guard. The attacks from the portal have lessened considerably since then but I can’t say whether that is a result of his actions or not.”

 I licked my all-too-dry lips and stared into the gaping wound in reality. Every conscious thought in my head was screaming at the insanity of such an idea, but the overwhelming thirst for blood was drowning out all but the loudest and most pressing of thoughts. It was all I could do to ignore the fact that I could hear and feel the heartbeats of all those around us, and somehow I could taste the lifeforce flowing under their skins. The heady sensation of their flesh and blood; made ever more succulent and tempting by the fermentation of fear and adrenaline flowing through their veins. I knew I was dangerously close to the precipice and diving head first to certain death in the depths of Oblivion itself seemed to be a better choice than succumbing to the taint corroding my soul.

 “It must be possible.” I murmured, eyes rolling over the terrain and desperately trying not to look at the pulsating veins visible in the flesh of the men and women around me. “It looks to me that there were several other portals open besides this one.”

 Matius looked to where I was pointing and nodded. “There were. Two others this size in front of the side gates further along the wall, and one easily three times their size. You can see the marks of the greater gate between us and this last one. Look, I can’t and won’t order you two to your deaths. We will hold the line and wait for the legion to send reinforcements. By then we’ll have the strength and the manpower to do something.”

 The several moments of silence seemed to drag on for eternity and I could feel the fear in my gut being overwhelmed with the increasing desire to drag these men and women down and tear their throats out with my teeth. Closing my eyes against the building pressure in my skull I controlled my breathing and ignored the fact that everyone within earshot was listening and watching both Viconia and I intently.

 Words failed me and I spat harshly on the ground, reaching back and drawing another arrow from its quiver and trying not to think about the lunacy of my actions, or the fact that there were only a few shafts left. Matius openly gaped, as did the handful of defenders around us as I stepped over the barricade and began striding towards the roaring portal into Oblivion.

 Viconia followed without hesitation, although I knew that I had merely started walking forward before she could and that she was going to enter that fiery gate whether I went or not. Weapons in hand we made our way several paces from the singed and broken wagons and barrels, the guard commander jogging forward briefly before we could go too far.

 He came to a stop beside me, face grim as he regarded us both in a new light. “Good luck.” The statement was simple but overwhelmingly honest. “If you get in there find out what happened to Ausonius and the others. Get anyone alive out of there and try to close this damnable thing. We’ll wait for you both.”

 My smile was grim and I knew he realised that I was fully aware of our chances with such actions. There was the briefest of nods to Viconia and I before he stepped back, rapping his fist against his chest before hurrying back to the barricade to prepare for the next daedric assault.

 Viconia and I strode to the towering inferno blocking all passage in and out of the ruined city, feeling the whipping of winds plucking at our clothing as it tore into and blasted out of the portal. The ground was crackled and burnt underfoot, stones turned to glass from incredible heat and the destruction seemed complete. Taking a breath and not allowing myself to think about my actions, I ducked my head and stepped forth into Oblivion.

 An oppressive heat rushed forth to meet us upon exiting the portal on the other side, and immediately I felt sweat bloom across my body almost as fast as it evaporated. Sulphur and brimstone, ash and smoke forced itself into our unwilling throats and lungs and for several moments Viconia and I went almost bent over with coughing fits. Tearing strips from our clothing we immediately fashioned masks of cloth and leather that while seeming to stop the majority of the taste of ash from catching in the back of our throats it didn’t do anything for the rotten-egg stink or the sheer temperatures assailing us.

 We found ourselves in a world of fire and magma, of volcanic rock blasted by millennia of destructive processes and almost carved from the very depths of the world itself. A sky of hellfire boiled overhead, clouds of noxious gasses and storms of molten metal clashing together with the sounds of a collapsing armour factory. Obsidian spikes and strange constructions of serrated black glass reached for the sky and directly in front of us and the glowing portal back to Mundus was a tower that seemed capable of tearing the heavens down with sheer spite.

 It was a world inimical to life, hostile to all those except it’s equally hostile inhabitants that strangely enough weren’t waiting on this side of the gate for intruders.

 This fact alone would have been enough to be concerning if it wasn’t for the signs of intense fighting within the portal’s vicinity. Blood, both mortal and daedric was soaking into the ground and already congealed by the heat and everywhere corpses lay where they had fallen. Mailed bodies of Kvatch guards in their Wolf’s-head surcoats left pitiful remains where they had died. Most lay clutching their various injuries, contorted with pain and agony. Others appeared as though they had died fending off attacks that had left them little more than butchered hunks of meat held together in the semblance of humanoid form by the constricting nature of their armour.

 Viconia and I shared a glance, noting that there were dozens of daedric corpses. Some the same stunted imps and reptilian monsters that had assailed the barricades outside of Kvatch, others were towering humanoids encased in obsidian armour that seemed to be forged in blood. They were towering creatures, easily seven or eight feet tall, black leathery skin and ridges and spikes of bone erupting across their bodies. Most were clad in thick plate armour that was horrific to behold, others dressed in robes that appeared to be made from some form of tanned hide that I didn’t want to think too much about. Each were surrounded by one or more corpses of city guards, and I knew with a glance around at the carnage that there could not be many survivors of such a battle.

 “Well, where to now?” I asked Viconia, looking over to her where she stood surrounded by the dead.

 She simply pointed to the spined tower rising before us and the stone bridge that crossed the moat of lava surrounding it. Around us it appeared as though there was a veritable sea of the material as far as we could see. “The energies of whatever is keeping this gate open is within the tower.”

 “And I bet that it is right at the bloody top as well.” I sighed, rubbing at my temples in a vain attempt to force the growing desire for blood into the back of my mind. It was growing more and more powerful now and unlike the days previous there wasn’t a deer nearby to fend it off long enough to remain functional.

 Carefully we picked our way through the carnage, ignoring the dead where they had fallen but keeping our eyes peeled for any further foes. Several of the corpses had been eaten, great hunks of flesh rent from their bones or in a few cases entire body parts were missing with no clue to their whereabouts. Others had been placed with almost a reverent care onto the jagged spires and spikes spearing from the ground, impaled in blood-chilling fashions that made my gorge rise as we passed by their grotesque bodies and anguished faces. Out of the guards who had assaulted the portal we doubted that there would be many, if any at all still alive.

 Of a greater concern however to me at least was the overwhelming lack of opposition or even traces of life within the area. Other than the flitting forms of winged creatures alighting on the upper levels of the tower or wheeling high within the tortured sky there was nothing to suggest the forces or numbers of creatures and beasts capable of devastating an entire city of thousands. There was nothing to even suggest that there was anything within the area at all, even as we made our way to the towering edifice and pushed inside the cavernous doorway imbedded into the base.

 For dozens, if not hundreds of meters and easily rivalling the White Gold Tower in scale, the daedric construction rose up above us. While thin like a needle in comparison to the ancient Ayleid tower of the Imperial City, this structure was utilitarian to the extreme if one looked past the walls weeping gore and the layers of spikes and jagged serrations festooning every surface. Savage intent was in every grove and marking in the building and as I lifted my head to gaze up the tower’s hollow core I could see a burning orb of fire many dozens of metres above where we stood.

 Viconia had no concerns and simply picked a direction and began moving, finding a staircase that she climbed with inexhaustible energy. There was little more for me to do but to follow, my bow in hand and arrow gripped tightly between forefingers and thumb and ready to be pulled back and loosed in an instant.

 With every step my desire to feed grew ever more crushing and it wasn’t long before I could feel the physical changes begin to rip through my body as the later stages of the disease finally took hold. The skin of my face began to tingle and feel tighter, the bones of my jaw and brow pressing against their fleshy prison and soon I felt a strange sense of power and agility flow through my veins. I felt stronger and faster, but so did the thirst and soon I was matching Viconia’s pace up the winding staircases of the tower, holding myself back but yet physically hunting her simultaneously as the rhythmic drumbeat of her heart urged me on.

 She was little more than half a dozen steps ahead of me, my grip on my bow and arrow weakening as I staggered to the top with every hint of utter exhaustion filling me despite the surging strength filling my limbs. We were easily halfway up the towering edifice, reaching a level where tiny rooms branched off in several directions and another spiralling staircase rose up into the wall in which it was set. Once more there was nothing in sight, living or daedric in nature and I knew that what little self-control I had left was badly frayed to the point of nonexistence.

 My bow clattered to the floor and the sound echoed through the tower like a thunderclap and I dropped to my knees, groaning with the exertion of ignoring my body’s cry for blood. I could feel my arms tense and budge with unnatural strength, the burns suddenly feeling as though they were non-existent and my fists clenching so tightly that the leather of the gloves split around the knuckles. Under my mask I could feel my face shifting, incisors lengthening to dangerous points that split my lips in a ghastly smile of a nocturnal predator even as my jaw twitched and grew stronger for a more powerful bite. The darkness within the tower seemed to shift and blur, before dropping away as though perfectly lit by lanterns. The man that I once was screamed outrage and despair into the void that was now my soul and turning to see what had happened Viconia stared with confusion at the sight.

 “What in all the hells is wrong with you Jaluk?” she spat, taking a single pace forward with her sword gripped tightly in her hand.

 I lifted my head and stared at her from my spot on the floor, face tightening and eyes narrowing as I smelt the powerful aroma of her blood that I could almost taste. The beast had fully gained control now as I rose to my feet, my mask falling away from my changed features and revealing to her a creature clothed in my flesh.

 Spitting curses, she staggered backwards, not in fear but in complete surprise and shock at my appearance. My lengthened incisors split my bottom lip slightly as I snarled, now completely bestial and almost heeding nothing more than the song of her blood. Unnoticed to the both of us initially one of the doors to the room opened and the plate armoured form of a daedra was revealed.

 The surprise was total, and it is a hard choice to determine who was more shocked between myself, Viconia and the daedric warrior. For a handful of seconds it stood as though a statue, staring with an all-too-human look of surprise on its face as it realised that the tower had been breached.

 With a roar that would’ve woken the dead the Dremora ripped its sword from the ring of metal clasping it to its side and stepped forward to rush the two of us. My own roar made it sound like the mewling of a child in comparison, causing not only Viconia to step back with the first signs of fear on her ebony features but actually stopping the daedra’s advance in its tracks as it struggled to comprehend exactly what it was facing. The seconds it delayed however spelt its doom as I threw myself upon it with blind fury, the vampire that had taken control of my body acting to remove the threat to its prey by the most efficient means necessary.

 The Dremora’s armour was fashioned like a facsimile of the tower; all edges were gleaming and serrated and portions appeared to be weeping a foul ichor that stained whatever it touched. The sword in its hand could’ve cut me in half without slowing if it had connected but I had suddenly found myself faster and stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. It’s first slice hit nothing but air as I contemptuously leant aside, feeling the blade’s passage across my face as my sword found itself way into my hand and hacked down on its. In a gout of blood its hand came away, the daedric nature of its plate armour proving insufficient to protect against the power behind my strike as the steel sword sheared through the blackened metal with surprising ease. It roared deafeningly into my ear as its hand and sword clattered to the floor, reaching with its remaining hand with no sign of pain or even acknowledging an injury that would’ve put a mortal on their knees.

 I danced out of its grasp, slicing at the black-red plate and realising that the armour was all too familiar to me. In the tiniest part of my mind that wasn’t consumed by the animalistic nature of a starved vampire I realised that it was almost identical to the armour worn by the Emperor’s assassins. With that thought in mind my attacks somehow increased in ferocity. Its fingers were crushed by a strike from my sword’s pommel, and an eye was cut out of its face despite the scowling plate helm that covered it’s red-black skin from sight. Screaming now in rage and indignation the creature redoubled its efforts even as I began to saw its head from its shoulders with the edge of the sword. Roaring in triumph and yanking to release the last threads of leathery flesh I pulled the decapitated head from its shoulders, feeling it’s ichor splatter my face and chest and filling my nostrils with the stench of sulphur.

 The moment of peace was short lived however as it was not alone. Alerted to its cries of anger and my own blood thirsty roars, several more of the hulking daedra had rushed into the room from down the stairs and through the larger of the doors and filled the air with their guttural roars of pleasure at seeing foes.

 Viconia sprang into action, leaping and twirling and never once stopping in place. Using her own momenteum she was able to place an incredible amount of power behind her attacks as she stabbed with pinpoint precision at any perceived weakness in their armoured forms. One dropped almost immediately as she punched the tip of her gleaming sword under its jaw, forcing it to fold up under itself in death. By the time its face had slammed lifelessly into the floor with enough force to break its nose she was already moving, slicing at the grasping hands of its fellows and parrying a pair of sword strikes that tried to bat her from the air.

 Others came for me, leaving their fellow daedra to deal with the quick moving Drow while they came to repay me for the death of their kin. They were enormous brutes of muscle and armour, wielding swords as though they were little more than metallic extensions of their arms while swinging them with such blinding speed that had I not been corrupted I would’ve died in seconds. Instead, purely running on instinct one of them dropped shrieking to the ground with a dagger buried to the hilt from the side of its leg under a kneecap, trying and failing to grasp the hilt of a weapon too small for the oversized gauntlets to grasp. Another lost an arm but fought on regardless of the fact, seemingly unhindered while what passed for blood was spurting from the severed limb from above the elbow.

 It was five against three and soon turned to an even four as Viconia launched a flesh blistering magical assault upon one of the Dremora. It shrieked as the flesh of its face was undone, sloughing away in its hands even as its eyes exploded and ran in bloody runnels in the bones of its skull. Dropping to the floor, the corpse gently steamed from a face scoured clean of flesh and suddenly the survivors were a lot warier of the intruders in their midst.

 Shudders rippling through the floor announced another foe for Viconia and I to face. Alerted by the sounds of combat the hulking form of a daedric champion appeared descending the stairs, clutching an enormous Warhammer that made all mortal crafts seem insignificant in comparison. Even with my newly acquired strength there was no way I could’ve lifted such a weapon of destruction, and even unarmoured the Dremora easily outweighed a legionary in full plate and could’ve wrestled a warhorse to the ground.

 Enormous horns protruded from its bare temples, pushing forward and angling inwards. It was obvious that this Dremora was lord over its kin not only from its sheer size but from the way they immediately made deference to it despite the raging melee. Its footsteps crunched into the floor with earth-shattering force, striding towards me with utter fury filling its horrific features. Raising the entirety of the Warhammer above its head its intention smashing me into unrecognisable paste in the floor was clear to behold.

 The head of the hammer thundered into the ground where I was standing, barely missing me even with my recently enhanced abilities. The Markynaz bellowed, roaring with such force that the sound alone was a physical blow to the body. Ripping the Warhammer out of the floor in an explosion of obsidian shards and dust it continued to swing ruinous attacks that would’ve pulped a troll. The two lesser Dremora that had been facing me attempted to surround and corral me towards their brute master but the beast occupying my flesh and mind had different ideas.

 One dropped to the floor with a clatter of metal, my last dagger jutting from its helmet as a result of a perfect throw. Six inches of steel imbedded itself in its brain before it realised that I was moving and this left its kin and master remaining to face me. Snaking out I sheared through daedric plate, flesh and bone with my sword, snapping the blade from the force of a strike so powerful that left the jagged hunk of steel imbedded deep in the creature’s ribcage. It gurgled uselessly, clawing at me in the vain attempt to pull itself across the floor while I faced down the eight-foot-tall Dremora Lord that now seemed even more infuriated.

 Crunches of masonry and roars of utter hatred echoed through the room, drowning out all others even as Viconia held her own against the last of her adversaries. It swung its Warhammer with wild abandon, crushing through the walls and floors with every swing and raging at my ability to duck and weave out of the way at the last second. Cursing in its own guttural tongue it lashed out with a serrated gauntlet as I stepped in to exploit an opening in its guard, moving faster than any mortal but still missing me by the closest of margins. With my ruined sword in hand I lashed out at its exposed face, it’s armour proving to be too much even for my enhanced strength to penetrate. Striking at the weaker exposed flesh I was rewarded with an arc of blood as it carved part of its cheek away from the gleaming black bone underneath.

 Like the others, such an injury provided little more than discomfort to the daedra, as it merely redoubled its efforts to kill me and sucked its breath through a hole in its face that exposed jagged teeth. I had lost myself in the orgy of bloodlust, the last barriers of my will crumbling under the vampiric assault on my mind. Little more than a starving beast I had lost myself wholly to the creature and when the Markynaz’s foul blood splattered my face and open, snarling mouth the last thread of control I still retained snapped as surely as though it was cut with a mithril blade.

 I leapt, moving through the hulking Dremora Lord’s guard like mist and lashing at its face with fingers as strong as iron. Flailing wildly, it battered away at me, its flesh-pulping blows wasting their strength on air even as I managed to clamber on top of its back. My fingers dug into its skull, grasping a horn in one hand and ripping its head aside even as it managed to grab my wrist with bone crushing force.

 Pain flared up my arm as the hand gripping its horns broke under the bear-trap like grip of the Dremora but the beast was not to be denied with victory so close at hand. Incisors gleaming, pain suddenly little more than an abstract emotion I latched onto the creature’s throat and bit deeply into its rancid flesh.

 Hot sulphuric liquid surged between my lips as the Dremora went into spasms at the impossibility of my actions. Freezing and all muscles tensing up with the shock and intrusion of my fangs into its throat it stopped all attempts to pry me loose, instead aching it’s back and falling to its knees. My wrist was broken, shattered from the constricting grip but it was far away, barely even noticeable as wave upon wave of corrupted, demonic ichor spurted into my throat that I drank greedily.

 It was no warm metallic tang of deer blood, or even the alluring, imaginary taste of Viconia’s supple flesh but of brute and overwhelming power unlike anything that walked the mortal world. Even as my body rebelled against the corruption contained within the unholy liquid the vampire revelled in the sensation, drinking greedily and spilling it over my face as I coughed, gagged and forced more and more of it into my stomach with every swallow. Enormous, unbelievable strength pushed through my limbs and suddenly everything was sent spiralling out of control. I could feel Viconia’s heartbeat, taste the sweat upon her body and see the tiniest of muscle movements as time itself seemed to slow as though encased in treacle. The surviving Dremora were shocked almost into submission at my actions, and I could feel myself become bloated with the Markynaz’s gore even as it spilled down the front of my armour and chin in splatters. It was pure power in liquid form and even as I began to vomit up the wads of blood that my body no longer had room for I could feel it surging through every vein like fire.

 I pulled my broken hand from the creatures grip as though it no longer had the strength to resist me. Bones knit in seconds, fingers straightening and knuckles hardening, twisting back into shape without any of the pain that should be associated with such a healing change. My jaw twisted out of shape, the bones of my skull suddenly snapping with loud cracks as my whole face seemed to elongate and become more animalistic in appearance. Fingernails erupted into black claws of ivory, the very bones of my fingertips shifting and melding with the nails before pushing through the skin to match the hands of the Dremora themselves. Veins pulsed under my skin, sending the black ink-like corruption pumping through my body even as every muscle seemed to tighten and flex and grow with the overwhelming power. Even the teeth in my skull warped and mutated, twisting and melding into new forms as each tapered to a point until my entire maw was filled with elongated incisors that only a slaughterfish could hope to match.

 The Dremora lord suddenly seemed pitifully weak and I hammered my fist into the top of its skull, crushing it and sending bone shards through what passed for its brain. I had utterly lost control now, the overwhelming blood-stink permeating through my very soul as the horrific daedric corruption mixed with the vampiric curse in a new and sickening form. Only two other daedra remaining standing, facing off against Viconia even as they forced her to back up against the wall with wild swings of their swords.

 Before the corpse of the Markynaz tumbled to the floor I had already leapt, covering the distance between myself and the remaining Dremora before they could even react to movement. The first fell quickly, screaming in surprise and shock as I battered through its defences and pulped its head and chest with blows from my fists that made a mockery of its daedric plate. Its kin, reacting quickly to the greater threat turned from attacking Viconia but didn’t survive much longer than its dead brother. I blocked its wild strikes, stepping in close and kicking a leg out with such force that its entire knee gave way and the greaves of its armour caved in from the blow. It fell even as I simply slapped away its futile attempts to hold me, grasping it around the wrist with enough force that the serrated gauntlet crumpled under my fingers. Keening loudly and trying to pry my hands off it, there was a considerable struggle as I secured my grasp, pressed my boot into its chest before _heaving_ and tearing its entire arm from of its shoulder with a wash of blood.

 The room fell silent as the creature died from a combination of blood loss and my boot slamming into its throat with the crackle of a broken windpipe. The room was in compete disarray, steaming corpses and chunks of daedric flesh scattered everywhere with only the hiss and gurgling of bodily fluids to break the growing silence. The level of fatigue that suddenly crashed down hard on my mind was complete and smothering in its grasp as all the adrenaline and the vampiric thirst vanished like dried leaves in the wind. My back was to Viconia and I couldn’t bear to turn around and see whatever expression or reaction she may have to what she had witnessed. The pain and shame was overwhelming almost as terribly as the realisation of what I had become exploded into my mind.

 Between the fatigue and the self-loathing, I could no longer bring myself to care about my fate or Viconia’s reaction. I half expected to feel the piecing or slicing kiss of a blade on my flesh as I dropped to my knees as the last vestiges of the Vampire slid back into my subconscious and my skin and bones returned to their previous human forms. I was sated, blood-drunk on the power and corrupt substance that I had forcefully, _willingly_ consumed from the polluted veins of the Dremora Lord. At that point, with the tiniest shred of sanity and humanity left in my mind I knelt there, wishing for Viconia to end my life and free me from the curse.

 Instead the indefinable material of the floor rushed up to my face and I blacked out as the fatigue finally gained a proper hold on my shattered mind.


	5. Dovah Invicta

 My eyes opened to the sights of billowing clouds of ash and fire, the unnatural twilight of their presence still shrouding the land around the shattered and tumbled walls of the City. It seemed strangely peaceful in comparison to the tumultuous realm of magma and death that Viconia and I had plunged headlong into despite the floating ash that was covering the land as surely as Red Mountain did to the lands at its base. However as I tried to prop myself up on my elbows and look around where I was laying there was a noticeable sense of calm and achievement in the area.

 “Woah, take it easy.” A voice exclaimed and a hand pressed gently on my shoulder. “unless you want a splitting headache I suggest you take it nice and slow.”

 A young Breton crouched next to me, her face seemingly genuinely concerned as she gazed into my eyes. “Both eyes are looking in the same direction so I guess that’s a good thing at least. You haven’t seemed to have suffered a head injury.”

 “How’d I get back out here?” I asked, seeing the piles of crates and barrels and the overturned wagons resting on their sides only a few metres in front.

 “Your friend carried you after the portal collapsed. I don’t know how you two did it but it’s gone and we are safe for the moment.”

 Pushing my palm into the side of my head I felt strangely fine. Bone wearily exhausted, tense muscles and a sore back from carrying a pack for days but otherwise I hadn’t felt this well in months, if not years. Memories of what had happened in the portal resurfaced in my mind as though I had been merely a witness to the actions and my stomach threatened to rebel against me.

 The Breton held me as I dry heaved, mistaking my nausea and sudden bout of illness to some form of injury that had rendered me unconscious in Oblivion. “Did she say what happened in there?” the hesitation in my voice was obvious, but there was no fear from her face or any of the others close enough for my blurry vision to identify.

 “You apparently beat all shades of shit into a group of daedra before passing out from the exertion.” A familiar voice added and I looked up into the beaming face of the Guard commander. Savlian Matius seemed fresher, more rested despite the state of his equipment and armour and the fact he desperately needed a bath. His white eyes were still framed in a face coated in sweat, daedric gore and soot but there was an unidentifiable energy about him that had not been there before.

 “If the portal is gone then why are we waiting around here?” Carefully I pushed myself up and onto my feet, trembling slightly as I looked about the rat-tag group of survivors.

 Savlian grinned, teeth white and fierce in the dark haze of the battlefield as he chucked a thumb over his shoulder at a small group standing a distance away. “The Legion is here.”

 The group of riders, magnificent in their gleaming plate and astride Cyrodiilic warhorses of prime breeding stock stood facing the burning city. There was only six of them, dressed in their full form fitting plate, horsehair crests fluttering in the mild breeze as they discussed and motioned to the area before them. The gatehouse was a yawning hole, the gates smashed aside off their hinges by incalculable force and the steel portcullis was melted into slag from incredible heat. These men had no qualms staring at the destruction and death, were simply and professionally creating their assault plan while waiting for the rest of their forces to arrive.

 Groaning I lightly touched my face, rubbing at the sore cheekbones and remembering how my entire face had elongated like a Khajiit’s after draining the daedra of blood. A terrifying thought entered my mind and I glanced around for Viconia, seeing her standing off to the side and staring at me as though she was contemplating the best way to stab me in the heart.

 “Did Viconia say anything else about what had happened?”

 “Other than complaining about how heavy you were as she carried you to the top of the tower in there? No, not really.” Savlian grinned even more. “I have no idea where the two of you came from or why you are here but you have done the impossible here today. By the Nine you even managed to rescue a handful of survivors in the upper levels!”

 There was a chuckle as he looked back at Viconia who had turned her attention to the mounted Legionaries. “But when say you, but I mean her. You were quite out of it for a while there.”

 “I’m better now at least.” My reply was surprisingly honest. I still felt as though I could sleep for a month without waking but there were still things to do.

 Excusing myself and brushing off the concern of the Breton who had been caring for the handful of wounded I walked towards the mounted Legionaries. Every step I took allowed me to feel the layer of gore and ichor sticking and cracking on my flesh and armour with every movement. I was coated almost head to toe in the congealed liquids and I knew that my appearance alone would be enough to terrify most people who laid eyes on me.

 One of the mounted soldiers turned and looked at me, his horsehair plume on his helm noticeably longer and reaching the nape of his neck. He was dressed in finer made armour than the others around him, breastplate forged specifically for his build and a sword of polished ebony comfortably resting in its silver imprinted scabbard. All of the riders held themselves high in the saddles, backs perfectly straight and not a single buckle or crease of their riding leathers marked or imperfect in anyway. These men were _Extraordinarii_ ; the mounted Elite of the Legion whose sole duty was the protect the Legate from all harm, with their lives if necessary.

 My fist double-tapped my chest above my heart as the Legion commander alighted from his saddle and pulled off his helm. He was in his middling years, hair with whispers of grey beginning to show and skin tanned from years spent in the saddle and marching alongside his legionaries. Like most Colovian-born Legates he had made his way through the ranks the hard way, marching and fighting and bleeding his way from Legionary all the way to commanding the might of an entire Legion. There were less than two dozen other such men scattered throughout the Empire and despite facing down daedric foes and my corrupted nature I fell a very real fear at the might that this one man commanded.

 “I understand that you and your companion are the ones responsible for breaking the deadlock and buying us enough time to arrive.” It was not a question but a simple statement encased in a level of professionalism that seemed to be a trademark of sorts for most Colovians.

 “Yes sir.” My nervousness was obvious to him, as was my bearing as my back straightened and instinctively standing to attention in his presence.

 He didn’t fail to notice the way I held myself or the particular way I had framed my response. “You’re a legionary?”

 “Yes Sir. Archer-Praefect Kaius Treblanus Desin. 8th Casta, 14th Legion.”

 He returned my salute before placing his arms by his side and helmet tucked into the crook of an elbow. The piercing gaze that he gave me however felt as sharp as spear points. “Legate Mettius Asinius, 2nd Legion. You’re a long way from home though Praefect. One might think you to be a deserter if you hadn’t just willingly thrown yourself into Oblivion.”

 “Both Viconia and I serve the Blades.” I stated, trying and failing somewhat to hide my trepidation while saying the first half-truth that came to mind. “We were sent to retrieve an individual from the city and arrived to find this.”

 My gesture took in the expanse of devastation and the burning city before us and his expression was grim. “Well that certainly explains how you managed to survive, and I believe that a lot of people owe you both their thanks as well as their lives. I won’t pry into any business of the Blades but this is not the time for whatever mission or contract you may have.”

 The sound of tramping feet gradually grew, and with it the sudden cheers and cries of relief from the survivors of the barricade. An enormous column of armoured men made its way up the slope of the western road to Anvil, battle standards waving in the breeze as the legionaries marched with heads held high and eyes narrowing at the sight of such destruction and death that awaited them. I counted five standards held aloft amongst the burnished black plate of the Cyrodiilic Legions, signifying the total strength of an entire _Casta_ marching in perfect unison. Each Casta consisted of five full Cohorts of 100 Legionaries and manned each major fort within the bounds of the Empire. Only under the direst of circumstances would a full legion’s might come together but when they did, ten full Castas of an Imperial Legion was enough to crush entire provinces and annihilate any foe foolish enough to engage it in battle. A single glance at Legate Asinius’ face and the destruction of an entire city around us however made me believe that these 500 men might not be enough for the task at hand.

 As the individual cohorts marched past the barricade the _Extraordinarii_ broke from their huddle and began relaying orders to the Centurions in command of each. Soon the great host of men split and broke apart as they passed their commander, breaking from the five-man wide column into five, five-man wide blocks that covered the ground as smoothly as it was a parade ground.

 “Are you fit to fight?” Legate Asinius’ face was part concern, part excitement at the battle to come, and all challenge to me.

 “Yes sir.”

 “Good. An extra bow in the assault Testudo will be beneficial, especially one who has faced these foes already.” He turned and called out to one of the _Extraordinarii_ hovering near his commander _._ “Urik, take this man to the 17th and tell Mede that he can make the breach as soon as he is in position.”

 The horseman gestured to me to follow as the Legate exploded into activity. Orders were sent, the marching blocks of armoured men moved about the area as though pieces on a chessboard and he even went about ordering the barricades defenders to prepare to assist the Legionaries. Viconia moved subtly into the mass of guards and civilians, purposely not following me and I felt strangely alone with the sudden loss of her presence. I was thankful for the distraction however; shadowing the _Extraordinarii_ officer and preparing for an assault on what was for all intents and purposes a hostile fortress ensured I didn’t have time to think about how I had succumbed to my curse.

 We moved to the central formation of legionaries, staring up at the walls and the raging inferno that was contained behind the thick stone constructions that had been specifically designed to stop this very situation. The gates were clear however, and as we got closer an extremely young looking officer stepped out of the ranks and saluted.

 “Centurion Mede.” He introduced himself, grinning under the heavy Barbute helm and the bleached crest of horsehair. “Looks like we have the honour of forcing the breach.”

 “I’m with you Sir. Just show me where to go.”

 “That’s the spirit!” his excitement was infectious and I wondered just how many battles this young commander had been in. As I looked closer however this fresh faced young man was clearly no amateur. A battered shield hung from his arm, pointed spear locked firmly in the curve between the arm straps and the layers of steel and lacquer. Even his armour despite being the type specifically made for Centurions and polished to a mirror’s sheen was no ceremonial piece. His armour was sturdy and as tested as the man’s mettle had been who wore it.

 The rest of his soldiers were the same. Grim faced, tough and unyielding like the stone under their feet, they readied themselves while double and triple checking their equipment as though it was likely to sprout legs and flee in the seconds since they had checked last.

 “A forester eh?” he said, after the mounted legionary had passed his orders. “Excellent. My men are good in a fight but several of my archers recently came down with the pox. I hope you can shoot.”

 I decided that I liked this officer, his gregariousness reminded me of Burd, or even more especially Ozzarious but there was no doubting his ability and professionalism. Turning on his heel he ordered one of his men who hung back from the main party to hand over his bow and his quiver. I couldn’t help but notice the sickly white skin of the man who had marched in full plate and chainmail from their fort to the northwest despite the illness. The march had allowed him to put aside all thoughts of comfort for the fight but was now very obviously glad not to have found himself in the fighting line.

 “Right lads, we’re going to take this city and kill anything that was not born of Mundus!” The Centurion carried himself like a four-decade veteran, his authority unchallenged and every word heeded by those who followed. “We force the breach, make space for the other cohorts but don’t concern yourselves with leaving them any glory if there isn’t enough to go around.”

 There was a ripple of amusement through the ranks as they began to roll shoulders and necks, twisting and jumping lightly on the balls of their feet in a clatter of metal as they loosened up march-weary muscles for the fight ahead. Helmets were wriggled down tighter on the underlying layers of cloth and leather, swords drawn and edges checked for keenness. Shields were shaken to see how secure their bindings were to their arms and prayers offered to the Gods in muted whispers.

 “Our mission is to liberate and protect. If it’s hostile, we kill it! Any civilians we get out of there and send them back. Hold the line, keep in formation and protect your brothers!”

 He turned, motioning to the largest of the legionaries in their heavier plate to take the first ranks, while I moved forward to my position in the fourth with the rest of the plate-clad Foresters of the cohort. Around us the ranks of legionaries formed a wall of steel and shields that protected the handful of archers in their midst that would allow us to close with the walls, march through the ruined gatehouse and enter the city. The front rank consisted almost purely of Orcs and Nords, the tusked Greenskins and towering Northmen usually the only beings strong enough to wear the heaviest of siege plate and tower shields. However, in this cohort I saw a single snarling face of a heavily muscled Khajiit behind its custom-forged helmet; it’s deep throated growl at the fighting to come suspiciously sounding like a purr.

 For such assaults on cities and fortifications as this they would find themselves weighed down by fifty to sixty kilograms of ebony plate, chainmail leather and cloth; heavy protection for only those strong enough and brave enough to be the first to march down the enemy’s throat. They grunted gouts of steaming breath in the midday air from the exertion of simply moving but despite this and the hours of marching they had already done that day they were ready for several more hours of killing.

 The Centurion took his place in the centre of the archers, where he could exercise control over the formation of men. A brass whistle hung from a leather cord around his neck for when the sounds of battle would drown out even the loudest of shouted orders and he seemed pleased to be leading his men in such an attack.

 Turning to the hulking form of his standard bearer by his side, he nodded once before drawing his sword with a rasp of metal. “Raise the standard Kurm. Let’s show these _bastards_ who’s coming for them.

 The hulking brute of an Orc carrying the cohort’s standard raised the four metre pole and banner into the air where the silken cloth caught the breeze. Resplendent on the maroon silk the Imperial Dragon gleamed, the numbers of the cohort, casta and Legion picked out in golden thread under the point of its tail.

 “ _Dovah Invicta_!” The orc bellowed, spittle ejecting from between its scarred tusks and broken teeth from a lifetime of fighting. With a solid thump he slammed the reinforced base of the banner into the ground with an audible crack.

 “ ** _DOVAH INVICTA!_** ” The Legion’s battle cry tore itself from the throat of every legionary of every cohort including my own with a deafening wave of sound that was felt more than heard. Swords were thrust into the sky as the roar shook loose streams of ash from the walls as the men and mer of the 2nd Legion went to war.

 The cohort marched forward into Kvatch’s surviving gate and past the scorched cobblestones had been turned to glass by the energies of the Oblivion portal. The legionaries advanced in disciplined silence, only the sound of steel clad boots crushing broken stone underfoot and roars of burning buildings echoing around us in the darkness of the tunnel. The murder holes lurking above us were empty, clear of threats and we pushed on past them, only providing them with the briefest of glances. The files on the sides compressed inwards to form a U shaped barricade of shields and armour to protect the archers, commander and standard in the core of the formation and within metres of exiting the gatehouse my view was suddenly blocked by the second rank raising its shields above chest height.

 Advancing into a city or through a breach was the most hazardous of duties, and those in front were always guaranteed to be the first to face the enemies’ wrath. As such only the strongest, bravest and most heavily armoured made up the first rank to absorb the first blows and allow the rest entry of the legion’s forces to follow. The strength of the Legion however was in its formations, and as we exited the gatehouse the files that had compressed into the sides moved forward smoothly. Suddenly the ten-man wide formation had doubled in length and the shieldwall strengthened perceptibly as we stepped into a vison matching that found in Oblivion.

 The front rank hunched low behind their shields, allowing the thick towers of wood and metal that usually covered everyone from ankle to throat to cover their entire body’s and overlap with that of the legionary’s beside them. The second rank stepped in close, raising their own shields over the front ranks heads and resting the bottom of their shields against the those of their brother’s in front. Held on a 45 degree angle it suddenly created a wall of metal two metres in height, covering all in the formation from most conventional attacks while the legionaries in the first rank gazed between the gap formed by the curved tower shields for enemies. This allowed the formation to advance relatively quickly under heavy fire while protecting all within long enough to get close and do some real damage.

 Solid impacts echoed out from the shields causing the soldiers to hold them to grunt with effort at holding them aloft and steady against the sudden onslaught. The wash of heat that emanated from the gaps between the shields was enough to cause most of those in the front rank to duck their heads away to protect their eyes and from years of training I instinctively knew what was about to occur.

 “Archers! Ready!” Centurion Mede roared over the slapping sounds against the shield wall. An arrow was already nocked and held in my fingertips but at his word of command I raised my arms, drawing back on the bow with surprising ease and holding it level to the ground. In the current formation the wickedly sharp point of the bodkin was held only a handful of centimetres from the back of the head of the legionary in front of me.

 A single whistle blast echoed, sharp and succinct and immediately the front ranks dropped down low; the front rank placing their shields directly on the ground while the second rank hunched down and angled their shields down as low as they could manage. Suddenly the shield wall had turned into a shield fence, no taller than sternum height and clearing the view for the handful of archers in the centre of the formation.

 Dozens of scamps, and a handful of Dremora had surrounded the formation as we entered into the courtyard beyond the gatehouse. The impish creatures had been scampering about throwing fireballs that did little but peel paint from the fronts of the thickened tower shields of the front rank, and most of the Dremora seemed to be holding back at the sight of the dozens of heavily armoured warriors that had marched into their midst.

 Timed to the second from years of practice on the parade ground and against flesh-and-blood foes the archers and myself instinctively flexed, made minute changes to our aim and fired a volley of arrows that plucked the daedra from their feet. In less than a second after our bows twanged the front ranks had stood up again, lifting the shields back into place before any retaliation could be made.

 We advanced in step, stopping every few paces to the sounds of specific whistle blasts and repeating the same tactics that annihilated our foes with barely even a graze to show for it. The thick shields and full plate armour proving to be more than a match for the oblivion-spawn that cavorted about us.

 Even the Dremora present in the courtyard fell easily. Some dropping with their chests protruding several feathers shafts as though they had spontaneously grown. Others, mostly those in some form of armour that was similar in make but not in quality to those Viconia and I had faced within the portal rushed the shield wall en-masse. While heavily outnumbered they showed no fear at the encroaching formation, instead charging with blood curdling cries that hurt the ears.

 Slamming bodily into the shields of the front ranks the dozen Dremora hacked and slashed at whoever they could reach. There was a rippling of motion in the seconds before they struck the line, as the second rank dropped back and lowered their shields, allowing the soldiers in the front to brace their own shields into the oncoming charge. To the daedra it must’ve felt as though they had run into a wall, both figuratively and literally as the legionaries merely grunted, took whatever blows on their shields before stabbing back with short, sharp and concise killing blows.

 Eyes, mouth, throat, groin; these were the places that every legionary was taught to strike through hundreds of hours of gruelling practice that left arms leaden and limp. But now, against a flesh and blood foe, albeit a demonic one the mind simply shut down and allowed the body to take over the motions long since engrained into them.

 Several of the Dremora dropped, blood spraying from horrific wounds as the points of the legionary swords cut smiles in their black flesh. Eyes were speared, throats gouged and each blow was terribly effective even against such enemies. Only a few managed to strike back against the legionaries but most of their blows were simply sent ringing off helmets and the thick padding underneath. One legionary involuntarily screamed as a black spear of obsidian slammed into his shield, the strange material allowing the daedric weapon to punch clean through it, his armoured forearm _and_ pin the limb to his chest. His two comrades, hearing the cry of pain from their shield brother retaliated instantly, both simultaneously stabbing forward with their blades and almost shearing its head and jaw clean off with the power behind their thrusts. A quick cut and a large portion of the spear fell away, leaving only a few centimetres jutting from the embossed front of the shield and the rest still trapped within metal and meat.

 A pair of whistle blasts this time, and the entire formation suddenly shuddered before the daedra could reform and take advantage of the minor chink in its defences. Without conscious thought, those in the front rank suddenly took a half pace to the right turning in the same direction as they did so that their shields still faced the front. As they moved the second rank took two sharp paces forward and slammed their shields together. Barely two seconds had passed and now the second rank was in the front, those who had led the way into the city now shuffling slightly between the closely packed ranks and allowing the handful of wounded to move behind myself and the other archers. Faced with another unbroken wall of steel and embossed dragon emblems the remaining daedra hesitated, suddenly unsure for the first time in their existence. They never got the chance to react however as another sharp whistle blast echoed and my bow and the handful of others lifted arrows to experienced eyes. The front ranks knelt, a twang of released tension echoed and another blistering volley snapped out into chests and bellies.

 The battle for the gate was over in almost less time it took to casually walk through the gatehouse and the courtyard beyond. Other than a handful of injuries, including the orc who would need a spear tip removed from his forearm and chest before some bones could be set there were no casualties. Several dozen minor daedra were scattered dead and dying around us, littering the courtyard with their bodies. For several moments it appeared though there might be a resurgence of activity as a minor horde of the creatures began to gather and bay at our incursion but behind us the heavy armoured footfalls of the following cohorts dissuaded the beasts of that idea.

 Fanning out the five cohorts of the 8th Casta took up their positions and began the advance through the burning and corpse strewn streets of Kvatch. Barely a single building was left unmarked, most having lost their roofs to the inferno that had started during the opening phase of the city’s destruction. Others were broken, their windows shattered and left like the broken teeth of a beggar, doors hanging on hinges secured with stubbornness more than anything else. Everywhere there were bodies, young, old, wives, fathers, grandparents, nobles and commoners. It was indiscriminate carnage and even for some of the veteran soldiers of the 2nd Legion it was enough for stomachs to rebel and bowels to turn to water. Corpses hung from windows, were impaled on street signs and lampposts and all in various stages of dismemberment or wearing expressions of excruciating pain. Some building had collapsed in on themselves as their flame weakened bricks cracked and mortar crumbed into dust. The sickening smell of burning flesh as we passed one such building was enough for a handful of the legionaries in the rank to lose control of their stomachs and vomit down their breastplates. None however I saw stopped or paused or to wipe away the bile that dripped down the front of their black breastplates and over their chins, their discipline ensuring that the formation would not weaken even for a second

 Here and there however survivors were found, appearing from the ruins like frightened rabbits being coaxed out of their burrows. Pockets of individuals and families, groups of strangers huddling in the dark and destruction for mutual protection and sole survivors came out as the tramping of feet revealed the presence of the legion. As it took back the city one street at a time, every corner or darkened window seemed to hide some daedric threat, and the handful of archers soon earned their salary. Plucking at bowstrings and sending shafts into anything that revealed itself, the hordes were thinned and several times the formation simply marched over the recently dead foes, booted feet stamping down on any trace of life. Several times larger groups of daedra would rush forward but the shield wall that would simply stiffen with resistance and punish anything that came within the range of a sword arm.

 Deeper we made our way into the city and following along parallel streets and paths legionaries would make their way with a growing collection of gore coating their bodies. Buildings would be cleared by squads of five, paths and back alleys by detachments of 25 and main arterial routes through the heart of the city were filled with the black armoured forms of full strength cohorts. Fighting around the central marketplace and plaza at the cathedral of Akatosh soon resulted in the sizeable daedric horde besieging the barred doors of the temple being assaulted themselves on two sides by two entire cohorts. The ground was left drenched in demonic gore, bodies layered two or three deep in places. With every double blast of a whistle handfuls of legionaries would shuffle through the closed ranks, retire to the rear for quick bursts of restoration magicka before returning to the line unless their injuries were more significant.

 It was late afternoon by the time the 17th cohort came to a halt in the shadow of the broken belltower of the cathedral. Two of the other cohorts were continuing their advance through the city and the sounds of fighting and dying still echoed from the direction of the castle. The city had been mostly liberated after several hours of solid fighting and while fatigued I was concerned how my muscles weren’t burning from the effort of drawing and firing my bow dozens of times throughout the day. The throbbing potency of the curse within my veins was making itself felt in the gathering twilight as I looked over the remaining legionaries I had fought alongside and noted how they all seemed so much more exhausted that me.

 Sweat dripped down over faces, clearing tiny trails in the layers of ash and gore that clung to the metal plates encasing their bodies. Heads were bowed, lungs dragging in deep breaths as they slowly began to regain their strength and not a single one of them was not coated to the elbows in daedric blood. Shields were battered, swords nicked and needing hours of repairs and resharpening and many had pieces of their armour that would need to be melted down and reforged before they would be of any use again. Chainmail hung limply in places, mortal blood seeping through where those who had suffered the injuries hadn’t realised it while they had fought. At the order to do so the cohort broke ranks in the middle of the courtyard, many choosing to collapse where they stood, others moving any in groups as they began to gulp mouthfuls of tepid water from water skins or sharing rations. The cloth-wrapped supplies of hard tack, dried meat and fruit was eagerly pulled from the pouches and bags that had spent the battle attached to their belts on their lower backs. Some of the more experienced pulled their rations of salted and dried meat from the space between their arm bindings and the inside of their shields. Here the tough leathery chunks of meat had been tenderised and softened by the repeated impacts they had sustained during the fighting and took a lot less effort to chew.

 The fighting continued sporadically throughout the night, although the lack of visible sun and the twilight of smoke, ash and burning buildings ensured that it seemed to drag on for an eternity. Under the commanding gaze and watchful eye of the Legate, the Cohorts rotated in and out of the battle, reinforcing and replacing each other as they ground the daedric foes into the dirt and crushed the resistance street by street. Everywhere the city was broken and destroyed, buildings in most places little more than tumbled ruins and smouldering piles of wood and rock and flesh butstill the Legion ground on. Even as the daedra were cornered in the far reaches of the city the Legion killed. As the castle gatehouse was sundered by the legion’s trio of Battlemages and allowing the might of two cohorts to force the entrance, the Legion killed. Only when the body of the Count was discovered; a flayed and mutilated remnant of what was once one of the most powerful men in the Empire did the legion finally cease its grinding advance and take stock of their actions. Corpses lay strewn throughout the streets, crushed and broken underfoot where the legionaries cut, stabbed and hacked the daedric foes down, but for every dozen or more daedra killed there had been casualties.

 Even the tactics and armoured might of the legion had not been enough to ensure that every man would make it alive or whole. There were injuries ranging from the mild and inconsequential to the crippling and fatal almost in spite of the most experienced of Legion healers. Several dozen corpses of legionaries soon found their way to the central plaza in front of the cathedral of Akatosh, arrayed in neat rows still dressed in their armour and their weapons placed reverently by their sides. The cost had been light in comparison to the difficulties of the reclamation and the sheer weight of daedra that had been crushed but each man was a friend and comrade whose presence would be missed in the shield wall.

 By what I had supposed was midnight the cohort I was attached to had been finally stood down for good. The battle for the castle still raged on the far side of the city as the full might of two cohorts rooted out the last of the daedra who had dared to claim it but for myself and the others our part was over. Most of the Legionaries simply found a spot and collapsed in a heap of gore and metal, allowing their fatigue and exhaustion to snatch them away for a handful of hours’ rest. Others found one of the few handful of fountains that still remained useful, sometimes tipping themselves right into the flowing waters that turned a crimson-black with the gore and ash that coated them. Like most major cities within the Empire the fountains were the lifeblood of the populations, using a combination of aqueducts, wells, pumps, windmills and enchantments to ensure that even under siege they would be able to supply fresh water and sluice away the inevitable nightsoil and muck of several thousands.

 I simply found myself a bucket, upending it over my head several times from a nearby well and drinking the mixture of blood, ash, dirt and sweat as it ran down my face. Too exhausted to care, my fatigue was total but unfortunately it still wasn’t enough to remove the sick pleasure of the taste of blood that mingled with the brackish, soiled water as it washed it off my flesh. I knew that I should be surrendering myself to the authorities to be put down like the daedra-spawn that I was but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The tormenting pull between the man seeking atonement and destruction and the creature with its desire to survive wracked me painfully as I found a mostly quiet spot near the steps of the cathedral and laid my head on my pack.

 The dreams that assailed my tortured mind were even worse than those the weeks previous. Now that my blood ran with the corrupted substance from a creature of Oblivion my thoughts seemed to be never ending images of death and destruction. In my mind I slew countless blood-robed assassins and drank of their flesh, twisting necks and snapping at bones to greedily suckle at the marrow. Fingers tore, teeth shredded and blows shattered, each image and thought more depraved and cruel than the last.

 Even as I awoke, feeling no less rested mentally despite the overwhelming might that seemed to infuse my limbs the images continued. What was a result of the tortured depravations of my mind succumbed to bloodlust and vampirism and what was the result of witnessing the death of a city at the hands of daedra was strangely difficult to ascertain. With the ceasing of the fighting the legion had turned to humanitarian endeavours, moving through the city and rescuing people from the ruins of their homes and businesses, feeding and performing aid where they could or taking them to help if they could not. Stories of exceptional bravery or luck seemed to travel faster than what word of mouth should’ve allowed, as did those of cowardice and dishonour. The baker who had stood fast in the door of his mill and fended off a score of daedra with nothing more than a rolling pin to protect his family and neighbours inside. The merchant who had chosen instead to take tally of the contents of his strongbox and safe instead of allowing anyone inside of his fortified business. The Fighter’s Guild members who had chosen to make a stand outside the city orphanage and alms-house to give a chance to those inside. The results of their actions in particular were extremely evident by the mounds of corpses that the 18th Cohort had to clamber over to reach the buildings and free the survivors. In places the daedra were piled higher than the orcish legionaries but unfortunately none of the Guild members had lived; their bodies had to be dug out from under the piles of daedric flesh.

 As what we assumed was mid-morning came, fires still raged fiercely and those who had survived either roamed in catatonic states or began the lengthy process of clearing the dead and saving those still alive. Corpses of the daedra were gathered and disposed of using the simple expediency of tossing them into still-burning ruins, legionaries were arrayed in silent rows along the edge of the great plaza and civilians were laid out in the vain attempt to identify those that had died. It was far too easy to see that the city had been slaughtered, utterly annihilated with only one in ten managing to live through the previous 48 hours. The entire population of 90,000 souls were left a handful of shocked survivors in the midst of a cinder.

 I awoke and rose in the middle of the hunched and prone forms of the legionaries of the 17th cohort, many still unconscious from their efforts over the previous day. Some had managed to scavenge enough cooking utensils and chunks of ruins to create makeshift campfires and everywhere I looked I could see survivors of the city mingling with the tough and rugged legionaries. What meagre rations they had were shared amongst everyone present; the morsels of salted beef and pork, hard tack and dried fruits, peas and jerky washed down with brackish water and the inevitable contraband supplies of alcohol that found its way into all legion formations. There was no joyish celebrations or obvious sense of victory that usually came after battles, the survivors having suffered far too much and the legionaries fighting to exhaustion and dying to liberate the city having sapped all sense of accomplishment from the triumph.

 Those who had defended the barricade were present in the plaza which had seemed to be the point where all of the survivors were gravitating towards now that the fighting was over. The tiny handful who had so heroically held the daedra from overrunning the countryside could be seen in their own tiny huddle, their shared experiences setting them apart from the rest who had been trapped in the city. Savlian Mattius and I found ourselves sharing a piece of beef that had been beaten into a stringy mush between someone’s arm and shield, quietly talking to one another about anything random in an attempt not to allow our minds to dwell on what had happened. He was taking the death of the Count particularly hard, as well as the news that all other guard commanders and the Guard Captain were deceased. None of the city’s officials or rulers had survived the siege, and as the Count had no surviving heirs and the only leaders of any note were a handful of guildsmen, priests and burghers the entire responsibility of the city had fallen on him like the weight of the collapsed belltower of the cathedral.

 Centurion Mede had delivered the news and the late Count’s signet ring personally to Savlian, expressing his condolences with honesty.

 “The Legate will eventually come looking for you once things begin to stabilise.” The weariness and sorrow was evident in both of their faces. “In the meantime rest up while you can and you can be assured that the legion is here to stay for the immediate future.”

 The young Centurion was exhausted but refused his body the luxury of giving into the fatigue. Eyes were sunken into their sockets, rimmed by soot, bruised and red from the irritants in the air. His hair plastered to his skull from sweat and the weight of his helmet and padding and I realised uncomfortably how young he really was. Barely even old enough to shave properly, his skin was smooth and only the rough beginnings of a red-brown stubble had begun to spread across his jaw. There was no mistaking though that his talent and determination had pushed him through every obstacle to his current rank and position.

 Savlian Matius was in a similar state as he stared absently at the ring in the palm of his hand. Such a simple bauble represented the full power of a Count and ensured a position on the Elder Council itself. For however long it took for Kvatch to start down either the long road to recovery or to permanent ruin it now rested squarely on the shoulders of a rough-talking guard commander. As someone whose previous responsibilities was to stop smugglers and vagabonds from entering through a minor gate he obviously didn’t seem to relish the prospect.

 The Centurion glanced in my direction and nodded. “As for you Kaius, the Legate has realised you from our service along with your companion. The two of you are free to go wherever and whenever you please.”

 The grin seemed to erupt from his face however as a moment of mirth broke through his grim disposition. “However if you are ever looking for honest work after the Blades has finished with you, there will always be a space in the 2nd for an archer of your skills.”

 “Thank you Sir.” I replied honestly, feeling strange at the idea of serving in a different legion almost on the other side of the Tamriel to the 14th. The idea did have a tiniest amount of attraction.

 “Call me Titus.” He replied, extending a hand and helping me to my feet. “Although I doubt that you two will be able to travel far without having every man, mer and beastfolk lining up to buy you drinks. Take care not to get that drunk in every tavern from here to Akavir that you can’t accept the Empire’s Septim again.”

 I laughed briefly, shaking his hand firmly and bidding my goodbyes to them both, the conflicted emotions raging inside of my mind as I began the long and arduous task of not only finding Viconia but discovering if our priest still yet lived. There were so many dead, wounded and survivors that finding a single man amongst the chaos seemed almost impossible. Finding Viconia was by far easier however, with the sudden lack of things to kill she had slunk away into a darkened corner from the prying eyes of those wishing to meet and thank the “Heroine of Kvatch”. I too had to pry myself away from those who had heard how the two of us had braved the Oblivion Gate and made it possible for the Legion to come and save them. The praise and attention seemed to be alien to me, as I was never used to being noticed by anyone more than my comrades-at-arms and Viconia especially tried to actively flee from it.

 She was inside one of the buildings along the edge of the plaza, what had once been a tavern of considerable quality and class was now nothing more than the broken ruins where nothing above the ground floor had remained habitable. The second and third floors had broken and fallen in on themselves, leaving a pile of broken bricks, stones, roof tiles and wooden beams to block the staircases and partially hold up what little remained. Inside the ground floor though the stone ceiling/floor of the first level was robust and heavily reinforced, bearing the subsided levels with little strain and leaving the interior surprisingly intact. While not broken by fire or damage, there were obvious traces of the slaughter that had occurred when daedra had beaten down the doors to get at those huddling inside. While none of the bodies remained, the stench of death, blood and voided bowels had ensured that Viconia was the sole inhabitant until I walked inside.

 Carefully picking my way through the remains of the broken door and the shattered remains of the barricade of tables and chairs I walked over to her, keeping my hands visible at all times. Her glance in my direction and sudden and obvious trepidation rain through her like she had been hit with a bolt of conjured lightning and with cold yellow eyes she watched my every move.

 “What do you want Jaluk?” she spat as she leant against the least damaged portion of the bar, a gleaming dagger resting on the scratched surface. She had been carefully pulling her pack and outer layers of around apart and cleaning and repairing them as best she could, using the dagger’s edge to scrape away at the layers of blood.

 “I wanted to talk to you.”

 Her hair floated in the air slightly as she turned, resting a hand on her shapely hips and sneering while the other drummed her fingers against the daggers hilt. “I doubt it. What is there to talk about?”

 “Why didn’t you leave me in the portal?”

 A moment of indecision gripped her and she froze, staring at me as I moved inside while ensuring a sizable distance remained between us. “The thought had definitely occurred to me.”

 “That’s not an answer.”

 “No, it’s not.” The cold calculating look in her eyes only grew in intensity. “I watched you tear several _errdegahren_ apart with little more than your bare hands after transforming into Shar-knows-what. While I myself have partaken in the drinking of blood it has only been for ritualistic or religious ceremonies. You ate that thing’s flesh and consumed it in a hunger that I have never seen. Not even from a starved illithid.”

 “I have no idea what an illithid is, but I know what you mean.” I paused, chewing my lip nervously as she seemed to stare into the recesses of my soul. “I am a Vampire.”

 “Vam-pyre?” she asked, brow furrowing and her fingers drumming on the hilt of the knife somewhat slower. She seemed unfamiliar with the word but not of what it represented.

 “There are stories in the Underdark of beasts that hunt in the depths, preying on the weak or those who lose their way. Even the duergar and illithids fear those that prowl the darkness. Bodies are occasionally found drained of all their _vlos_ ; their life-force stolen and consumed by the creatures. The bestial _slaggiss_ kill in an orgy of dismemberment while stories of the invisible _heethir'ku_ and their myriad of forms are told in hushed whispers.”

 “You however,” her finger pointed directly at my chest. “You are something different.”

 “I am a vampire. My curse is now to live off the blood of those I kill or feed upon, left to be nothing more than a nocturnal parasite and unable to exist in the sun for the rest of my life.” With a dark snigger I nodded to her. “at least in that regards we almost have something in common now.”

 The sudden look of confusion was not lost on me and she tilted her head. “Unable to exist in sunlight? What nonsense do you speak?”

 “I can’t exist in sunlight. There are dozens, if not hundreds of different tales of vampires throughout Tamriel but there is only one definite fact for certain. Vampires cannot exist in sunlight at all, not for anything more than a handful of seconds.”

 “You lie.”

 “I don’t bloody lie! Why by the Nine would I lie about something like this?”

 “I cannot ascertain your reasons within that enfeebled mind of yours Jaluk, but I know this. While you were sleeping earlier the sun managed to break through the clouds and the smoke for the better part of an hour. That other than the fact to get away from the sycophants that have dogged my steps since entering the city is the reason why I came in here. The light still gives me pain and burns my eyes, but you?”

 Her eyes were narrow and face turned into a snarl. “You bathed in its radiance without the slightest blemish to show for it! You can’t stand before me and say that it can do you harm and kill you. I know what I saw.”

 I stood there stunned, looking between her, out the door and at my hands still clad in their destroyed gloves. For what felt like an age I tried to comprehend what she had told me, trying to believe that she was lying or deceiving me. While she may be harsh and arrogant she was openly honest to the point of blunt rudeness about most things.

 “It matters not.” She said before I could press her further. “I carried your useless body out of that hell as I still have need of you. The fact that you drained that creature is nothing compared to what you did to it and its kindred afterwards. I underestimated you and although I know that you are not the same being as the one that entered my prison a fortnight ago you are still the best chance of me surviving the surfaceworld. This is an alliance of convenience and your eventual betrayal has changed form, not changed in its likelihood.”

 With a dexterous twirl the dagger flipped in the palm of her hand and she slid it into its sheath. “You will betray me, like all the others but instead of hungering for my body you’ll hunger for my flesh and blood.” A bitter laugh echoed in the room. “And this at least explains you actions and strange looks you have been giving me since we met.”

 “I don’t intend to betray you Viconia.”

 “The Man may or may not, but the animal inside you? That’s different. I will continue to accompany you but I am better prepared to face you now that I know what your true nature is.”

 She deftly gathered the pieces of her equipment off the bench, attaching it back to her belt or stuffing it into pouches muttering to herself in her native tongue. “ _Nindyn vel’uss kyorl nind ratha thalra elghinn dal lil alust_.”

 “If we continue to spend time together then I guess I will have to learn to speak Drow.”

 “Good luck with that Jaluk.” Her tone was half superiority and a tiny part challenge, throwing the straps of her pack over a shoulder casually. “Now let’s go find this priest.”

 We made our way out of the ruins back into the courtyard where, true to her word the sun was beginning to break through the clouds and smoke and allow shadows to flit and race across the ground. Despite all my instincts and unease I forced myself to stand utterly still as a patch of light rolled across with the clouds, illuminating me in the sudden warmth. Unlike the previous days were my skin would feel hot and tingle as though I was quickly becoming sunburnt there was now nothing out of the ordinary. I stood there with my hood and coif pulled back into a mound of metal and material at the back of my neck, feeling the heat and light with no difference as I had over the dozens of years of my life. The inexplicable fact that I could exist in the sun flared a tiny whickering flame of hope in me before the now-constant desire and lust for blood scratched at the back of mind, sated for the moment but ever present like the beat of my heart.

 The enormous cathedral was the largest building within the city, even despite the loss of the upper levels of its belltower. Giant and bronze the broken bells lay in amidst the rubble where they had fallen, their voices now silenced and their cries replaced with the minor tolling from the handful of others scattered through the city in the smaller chapels and churches. The cathedral had been a beacon of hope in amongst the terror and devastation and dozens, if not hundreds of survivors had found themselves inside during the daedric invasion, ushered in by the handfuls of priests that lived within its massive stone walls. Thick, unyielding and as strong and formidable like the city fortifications it had stood resolute as the daedric hordes had spent hours unsuccessfully attempting to gain entrance and slaughter those inside.

 Stained glass windows depicting saints and Aedra were shattered, their crafts that had stood through wars and plagues for thousands of years now nothing more than shining gemstones of glass on the ground. The doors were pitted and burnt but still unbroken and nearly every piece of furniture inside had been used as makeshift ramparts and barricades to block the daedra from entering. Viconia and I made our way inside against the steady of flow of people coming out to feel the sun’s warmth and see what remained of their city, but the numbers that remained inside were humbling.

 Like most other major cities, especially within Cyrodiil, enormous crypts and catacombs were built underground and could only be accessed from inside the cathedral. It was in these cold musty depths that dozens of survivors had been steered by the priests and where they had been safe and mostly unaware of the devastation that had occurred on the surface. Kvatch’s catacombs were enormous due to the nature of the city and the towering mesa that it had been built on top of, and as a result most of the survivors had spent the entirety of the siege near their ancestors and those whose lives had preceded them. Even though a majority of them were leaving the building a lot still remained and the Legion had turned the cathedral into a combination of a homeless shelter and hospital. Healers trained in the art of restoration and a handful of Battlemages, identifiable in their legion plate and coloured hoods made their way through the press to where they were needed. Others, such as surviving city guards who had been lucky enough to be inside the cathedral when the city fell made their way through the press of civilians, carrying wounded and what little supplies were available for distribution. The sounds of crying and weeping and the groans of wounded echoed alongside softly spoken prayers and even the sound of a choir in the far reaches of the massive structure.

 Viconia and I almost went unnoticed, the press of people and the mutual suffering of all those present meant that they all had other things on their mind despite knowing of the deeds of the “Hero” and “Heroine” of Kvatch. A few made eye contact with us as we carefully moved through the dozens around the interior of the main entrance but few seemed to recognise us. A weary looking Redguard merchant, his overweight body squeezed into a set of brigandine armour saw us and touched his fingertips to his forehead, lips and heart in one fluid motion with the same amount of respect and deference as a Breton would knuckle his forehead or a legionary tap his fist against his chest. I nodded my thanks and noted how despite the fact that he was not a soldier in any interpretation of the term, he had a well-used sword scabbard at his side, a fresh series of scars down his arm and his armour had been rent by some collection of daedric claws. He had obviously chosen to be among the few to fight for the city even despite his shortcomings and I knew that there would be hundreds of other such individuals who had stepped up to the challenge of Kvatch’s darkest hours.

 One of the brown robed priests made his way through the press and I hurriedly followed, lengthening my stride until he was close enough to hear me amongst the babble of noise echoing within the expanse of the temple.

 “Can I help you my son?” he asked, looking at the two of us with the expression of someone who had seen far too much but wasn’t allowing his mind to dwell on any of it.

 “We’re looking for someone and trying to find anyone who can help us.”

 “Many of those here have lost friends, family and loved ones, but I will help where I can.”

 “The man we are looking for is a priest of your order.” I replied, eyes still roaming the press for anyone who might stand out. “His name is Martin but we have no idea whether he survived or not.”

 There was a smile, honest if weary. “He lives, and in fact there are a large number of those here who owe him their lives due to his actions. He’ll be about here someplace.”

 I gave the priest my thanks as he motioned for us to follow after him as he weaved through the people sitting, standing or moving about on the tiled floors. There were entire families and countless individuals within the expanse of the cathedral’s interior, most sitting about calming children or staring blankly at nothing. Others ate what little supplies they were given and even in one spot a gaudily tailored bard stood with an extremely batted lute and softly played it with reasonable skill. The instrument appeared as though he had used it as a club and the bloodstain up the front of his tunic attested to the fact that he might have been of far sterner stock than the usual travelling minstrels. At one point I had to step to one side to not have a small group of children run into me as they played tag between the adult’s legs. A Bosmer child, less than 5 winters old chased after a Khajiit cub and a dark-skinned redguard toddler of roughly the same ages, their laughter raising the spirits of those around watching them. All of us adults could easily marvel at the resilience of youth but despite knowing that these children would be plagued with nightmares for quite possibly the rest of their lives, for the moment they knew nothing more than the simple pleasure of playing with others.

 “If it wasn’t for brother Martin most of those here would be dead I believe.” Our escort briefly paused and motioned throughout the room and sighed. “While everyone else was panicking and fleeing he was as calm as though he was going for an evening stroll, walking about and directing everyone inside even as the city began burning.”

 I pushed past a small group, seeing the expressions of surprise at Viconia and my appearances in their midst as I listened to the priest. “He was so calm, ensuring that everyone in the plaza came inside and as the groups fleeing the daedra coming over the walls started arriving he made sure they made it to safety as well. I am proud to say that he almost singlehandedly led the defence of the Cathedral. It was his ideas that allowed us to barricade the doors and windows and I saw him at least twice rally the groups defending them to push the daedra back. The tally of the dead would be far higher without his leadership.”

 We followed the priest to where a collection of individuals were being treated for their injuries, the undressed form of a legionary among them with the black legion mark visible above a broken elbow. A handful of robed healers and priests of Akatosh were amongst the wounded, changing dressings and healing with tiny glows of magicka or simply soothing fears with words and conversation.

 “Brother Martin?” our escort said, and I saw how one of the grey-robed acolytes of Akatosh turned and rose from where he was talking to one of the groups before us. Quickly excusing himself from the conversation he walked over, exchanging a bow to our escorting priest and looking at us somewhat warily but with obvious recognition.

 “I heard how you both helped the guard and singlehandedly closed the remaining Oblivion gate.” He said, voice soft and strangely soothing. “This city owes you a debt of thanks.”

 “I guess we both will have to get used to acknowledgement.” I replied, feeling strangely sheepish at his attention even as I studied his face intently. There was an obvious resemblance to the Emperor but only if you knew to look. “But we didn’t come here for that.”

 “Really?” as he spoke I was becoming more and more convinced that this man was the one we sought. “I doubt anyone has travelled expecting to find themselves in Oblivion and saving the survivors of a city, but in that case what did you come here for.”

 “We came looking for you, unless there are any other priests here named Martin?”

 “I’m the only one by that name and yes I’m a priest. You two don’t look like you need a priest and even if you were I don’t think I’ll be much help to you.” His expression suddenly hardened as though carved from granite and I could see the tremble of barely contained rage run down the length of his body before it was supressed. “I’m having trouble understanding the gods right now. If all this is a part of a divine plan, I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with it.”

 The more I studied his features and even the way he spoke and held himself made me entirely sure that we had found the man we had come for. He had the same facial features, the same build and especially the same piercing eyes that stripped you down layer by layer and left nothing hidden from sight. My scrutiny didn’t go unnoticed though and those eyes roamed over the both of us with growing suspicion.

 “God’s or not.” I replied, motioning to not only Viconia and myself but everyone within the cathedral. “We need your help.”

 A bitter laugh was initially all I got in response. “If you came to me for help, you’re more of a food than you look. Take a look around, what good is a priest amongst all this?”

 “We’re not here looking for a priest.” Viconia said from beside me, looking thoroughly disinterested and increasingly bored. “We’ve come for you.”

 The look of unease in his face seemed to build and I could see his scrutiny intensify. “Looking for me, why would you come looking for me?”

 “We’re working for the Blades.” I replied and saw the unmistakable tremor of fear shake him to the core for a heartbeat before he regained control over his emotions with an impressive amount of will. “You are Uriel Septim’s son and we came to get you.”

 The expression of fear was suddenly replaced with outright disbelief, and a suspicious amount of relief that was unusual in itself. “Uriel Septim, as in _Emperor_ Uriel Septim?! You think the Emperor is my father?”

 He shook his head and turned to walk away. “No. No, you must have the wrong man. I am a priest of Akatosh. My father was a farmer.”

 “The daedra came here for you.” I stated simply, watching as he stopped in mid motion with the look of a man who knew more than what he was letting on. It felt exceedingly strange as I openly voiced my suspicions though. “It’s a little overkill I know, but razing an entire city to the ground to kill one man is an efficient way of doing it.”

 For a second he was stunned, looking around and obviously taking in the sights and smell of death and destruction that we were surrounded by. “All this death…. Because I’m believed to be the Emperor’s son?”

 I nodded simply, seeing the strength suddenly deflate out of him as he looked between the two of us. “You… You aren’t lying. Either of you. It… It’s strange… But I think you might actually be telling the truth. What does all this mean? What do you both want from me?”

 “We were contracted to take you back to safety. Back to the Blades near Chorrol.” Viconia said. Giving me a shrug as I glanced at her. “it was meant to be a lot easier than this.”

 He looked at her almost as though he was seeing her for the first time. Her beauty was incredible to the point of distraction but it struck me as though that he was used to seeing past external appearances and personalities. “You destroyed the Oblivion Gate, they say.” He said simply, chewing his lip and rubbing at the stubbled goatee with a grimy hand. “You both gave this city hope and helped to drive the daedra back.”

 There was a definite pause as he thought deeply and thouroughly before speaking again. “Very well.” He nodded. “I’ll come with you. How soon do you plan to leave?”

 “How soon can you be ready?”

 His glance around the room spoke measures more than simple words ever could. This was his home and now like many of those around us he would soon be leaving it all behind to an unknown future. In his case however he was going with a pair of total strangers to a destination not of his choosing. “I’ll gather my things and meet you near the gate in an hour. There are some goodbyes I need to give first.”

 “Pack lightly but prepare for a lengthy journey on foot.” For a moment I wondered just how exactly we were going to escort a priest through the depths of the Great forest or even by a road bound to be clogged with refugees. Instead I noted the way he straightened his back and I could see that he was not a pampered man of the cloth and had a body well used to exertion. “Between the two of us we’ll have everything we need to get to Chorrol but it’ll be a rough couple of nights.”

 “Nothing as rough as the last two nights I believe.” The three of us grinned at his words and I gestured to Viconia and myself. “I’m Kaius by the way, and this is Viconia.”

 “I know of your names. There isn’t going to be a soul within the county by the time the sun sets who hasn’t heard of your actions here and at least I know that you’ll look after me. I doubt I’d be safer surrounded by an entire legion than escorted by the two who braved oblivion and saved a city.”

 He must’ve caught the sudden look of embarrassment that I failed to crush and gave a knowing smile. “I won’t be long.” He promised, nodding thoughtfully to the two of us before turning and moving through the press.

 “Did you see that look he gave you when you said we were working for the Blades?” Viconia muttered, rising a shapely eyebrow and folding her arms after he had disappeared itno the priests’ quarters. “That was fear if I have ever see it.”

 “You saw it too?” the sense of disquiet building inside of me could not be squashed. “Just what we both need, another traveling companion with secrets to hide.”

 “ _Nindyn xuil szeoussen shlu’ta veldri byrren_.” She replied. “Those with secrets can hide others. He might be a little strange but I doubt either of us have to worry about him.”

 “Meaning you trust him more than me.”

 The glare I received was almost burning with intensity. “Your perception, as always is humbling Jaluk. One must wonder how you ever managed to make it this far.”

 “And your faith in me is a comfort that keeps me warm at night.” I turned on my heel and began making our way through the press. “Let’s go get ready for the trip. I want to be away from the city before we make camp tonight.”

 “As you wish, _veldruk_ …” she spat, her icy glare ever present as she too followed after me into the sight of a city filled with death and fire.


	6. Return to the Priory

We stood just outside the gatehouse near where the Oblivion Portal once stood, waiting and watching the crowds of people shifting and flowing out of the wounded city for Martin. Most of those who had survived the destruction were choosing to leave the city with whatever they could salvage rather than wait for famine and plague to start running rampant. Legionaries and city guard could be seen at regular intervals, steering the flow and ensuring that fights and arguments were stopped before they could become disruptive and ensuring that the constant stream of men and materiel travelling into the city was not slowed.

 Messengers had been sent telling of the victory and requesting aid for the hundreds of refugees and survivors, the passage of the information helped along by the Imperial watch posts placed every 20 kilometres along every major trading route. These posts, manned by a handful of guards were little more than a bunkhouse, a stone watchtower and stables containing several dozen horses at any time. Messengers would ride a horse between the two, travelling the distance at a canter in an hour, in 30 minutes if they didn’t spare their rides before handing the wax-sealed messages onto the next rider or simply changing horses instead. This system, used since Tiber Septim still strode the earth ensured that messages could travel across the breadth of the Empire in days, in less if the news was important. It wasn’t unheard of for messages being sent from Leyawiin in the far south of Cyrodiil to Solitude in northern Skyrim arriving in less than 2 days that left a trail of dead or broken winded horses along the route.

 I knew that the news of what had befallen Kvatch would’ve reached the Imperial City easily by the time Viconia and I had entered the Portal, and the news of our actions would reach the entirety of the Empire by the end of the week. Even such organisations as the Black Horse Courier would send the word as far and wide as they possibly could. I felt strange at the recognition that would soon be afforded to us, especially when assisted by the fact that I had noticed a young Mage etching our likenesses into wooden slates as we waited for the priest. With a combination of illusion magicka to project our appearances onto the slates she burned our portraits into the wood with a tiny hint of flame from a fingertip, as easily as sketching with charcoal.

 When he finally arrived I noticed the change about him, the reluctance was obvious but he had obviously steeled himself for the journey and the uncertainty of his future ahead of him. Dressed in his ankle length robes, now with the hems permanently stained with the soot and ash dusting the streets and a single rucksack containing personal items, he was almost invisible in the crowds.

 Noticing us as I waved to him, he wandered over, the strap of his pack over one shoulder and looking nervously at Viconia and my appearances as we were both no longer taking chances. Both of us were fully armoured, leather and padded cloth under layers of chainmail, swords and other pieces of equipment making us both appear more as grizzled mercenaries or even highwaymen than the two individuals who had stopped a daedric assault on the city. Dressed in robes and leather boots obviously made specifically for him he seemed comparatively naked, especially in weaponry.

 Viconia had managed to find a set of plated boots and steel greaves as well as a breastplate. The breastplate finally managed to hide a significant portion of her femininity and beauty in a way that simple cloth and chainmail found impossible. I had managed to find a new sword to replace the one I had snapped inside a dremora’s ribcage, and had returned the bow I had fought with to its rightful owner. Lucky for me however I had managed to find a suitable replacement, a double-curved hunting bow made from a compound of bone and laminated wood that would’ve been the envy of Bosmer. Finding new equipment was unfortunately easy due to the fact that the thousands of corpses were being stripped of everything of value in preparation of burial, cremation or entombment. In several places in the city the stacks of grave goods towered over those individuals adding more items to their bulk. Such examples of depressing sights like piles of shoes, almost two metres tall and over twelve wide at the base was unfortunately becoming a common occurrence throughout the city.

 “So this is it then?” Martin said as he wandered over to us and looked every bit as nervous as I expected. “I suppose that I don’t have a choice in all this?”

 “Not in the slightest.” I replied.

 Viconia looked up from where she leant against the towering city walls. “You’re coming to Chorrol if I have to drag your unconscious body by the ankles all the way there.”

 Martin went to laugh until he saw that she wasn’t joking but stating a fact. The chill that went up my spine was shared by the priest.

 “She doesn’t seem to like me.” He whispered as he moved closer, keeping an eye on her as she pushed away from the wall and threw her pack onto her back.

 “Don’t take it personally.” I replied, fitting the leather case carrying my unslung bow over my shoulder and holding onto the strap. “She hates everyone. She’s indiscriminate like that.”

 “Should I be concerned?”

 I shook my head, making a noncommittal grunt as I did so. “If she wanted you dead, you’d be dead. We’ll get you to Chorrol and to the Blades.”

 “And then?” He was concerned at my mention of the Blades but not as seriously as he was earlier.

 “Your guess is as good as mine.”

 We set off into the gathering gloom of the evening, leaving the destroyed city and its volcano-like plume of fire and smoke behind us as we retracted the path we had taken from Chorrol. Martin stopped only briefly as we rounded the South-Eastern portion of the walls where the slope of the ground rose up to the plateau, looking back at the city and its gates with what I gathered to be a mental spoken farewell. Together our trio made it several kilometres away from the city, heading north and to the foreboding rolls of green that spread across the horizon, and the rolling mountain ranges of the Colovian Highlands.

 Making camp as soon as darkness fell, I lit a small fire in a tumbling gorge where a stream had long since carved and then dried up hundreds of years before. In amongst the rocks and grass the three of us soon passed out, both Viconia and I mutually choosing not to worry about sleeping in shifts for the first evening at least and allowing ourselves the first proper nights’ rest in over a week. At that point I could’ve fallen asleep on a bed of broken grass and for the first time in days my dreams were blank and empty instead off filled with carnage and blood soaked horrors. Viconia seemed to sleep as though dead but we couldn’t say the same for Martin and as we woke for the first rays of dawn creeping over the horizon he looked even worse for wear. I knew that he wouldn’t have issues sleeping for the night to come after a full day’s march awaiting us and so we quickly ate, drank and began the soul-sapping process of placing one foot in front of the other.

 The first day went well, despite the reduced speed that Viconia and I had grown accustomed to. Martin, while surprisingly fit and not at all what I expected for a man of the cloth was still not used to such overland travel. Viconia especially soon began to grate at the less-than-rapid pace that we set for Martin’s benefit, travelling comparatively less than two thirds of the distance per day that we had managed on our journey to Kvatch.

 For the second evening however I had managed to lead us to a small running stream that had made its way from its birthplace up in the Colovian Highlands. It cut through the rolling hills and between the spires of rock that dotted the landscape, making its lonely way south in amongst the thickening vegetation of the Great Forest taking hold. It was a tiny affair, less than a half a dozen paces across but chest deep in places and providing the opportunity to wash off a week’s worth of travel dirt, daedric ichor and grime that we had accumulated. Taking it in turns we individually stripped off everything, scrubbing ourselves in the flowing water before washing our clothing and whatever else we could the best we could manage. Martin and myself found ourselves sitting near the fire, both incredibly weary from the journey and the occurrences over the previous days. He sat in a kind of stunned silence, looking into the fire as I carefully butchered the trio of rabbits I had managed to hunt during our travel.

 I doubt that he was interested in watching me skin and gut the tiny creatures, stuffing their bodies with a collection of pebbles I had found to assist in cooking them in the campfire’s coals. But at that point Viconia was noisily pulling her armour and clothing off piece by piece, muttering and assumedly swearing in her native tongue as she pulled it all off where blood and sweat had stuck it to her skin. I too found more interesting things inside the tiny bundles of offal and fur sitting in front of me as she finally managed to haul her shirt off with a staccato of curses that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye and nothing else I watched her stomp off barefoot in the direction of the creek, her clothes and leather under layers piled up in the crook of her elbow while wearing nothing more than her pants.

 “She’s an unusual one.” Martin muttered as the sound of Viconia entering the water in the darkness at our backs echoed.

 I snorted, poking at the campfire and dragging out some of the burning coals in readiness to cook. “I notice how you didn’t try to stare.”

 “I’m a priest. We’ve above that sort of thing.” there was an amused twinkle in his eye as he regarded me expressionlessly. “What’s your excuse?”

 “I value still having eyes and all my bits attached.”

 He laughed this time, an honest one that was at odds with the way he had been the entirety of the day’s march.

 “How much do you know of the world?” I asked him suddenly, getting the coals and rabbit ready to cook.

 “That sounds as though you have specific knowledge you are seeking.” He watched hungrily as I placed the rabbits into the coals and the smell of their roasting meat was instantly filling the air. “I’m not as knowledgeable as an acolyte of Julianos but I may be able to provide some answers.”

 What do you know of the Drow?”

 “Ah.” He replied, nodding a head in the direction of the stream. “You want to know more about your companion.”

 “Knowledge is power.”

 “Indeed it is.” Pausing for a moment he motioned for me to pass him a dagger before starting to draw lines in the cleared dirt in front of us. “I only know a little as there is far too much in this world to be known by any one man, but I have read of some of the wonders that exist in Mundus.”

 Carefully, and from memory he drew a fairly accurate depiction of Tamriel and the other realms in their rough approximations. On the map I could see the island of Vvardenfell, Atmora to the north of the Sea of Ghosts and Akavir to the far east of Tamriel.

 “The Drow are unknown to most on the surface. And while I have no doubt that Viconia is one I can’t recollect or even think of any cases where one of their kind has been met on the surface.”

 “But they are known?”

 He nodded. “Yes, but very rarely. Their world is deep under our own, and almost impossible to get to except by the most determined. What little I have read is even the Dwemer, and all their attempts of building a life within the hearts of mountains had only managed to breach into the upper levels of the world that she comes from.”

 Dragging the dagger’s tip through the soil he drew two large shapes through the map, the first covering most of Morrowind, the entirety of Vvardenfell and all of Skyrim, while the other covered southern portions of Hammerfell, all of Cyrodiil and the northern portions of Elswyr and Valenwood. “The Ayleid’s ruled the south during their time,” he said, stabbing the tip into the ground in the lower shape where the Imperial City was located. “But the Dwemer,” the dagger stuck into the heart of Skyrim. “they ruled the depths while the Ayleid’s built into the skies.”

 “I have seen their cities in Vvardenfell.” I replied, tapping at the livid scarring up my arm where wingtips and head of the dragon brand poked through. “One of the Legion’s responsibilities is stopping the smuggling trade of Dwemer artefacts.”

 “Then you have an idea of how deep they carved their mark into the world.” My nod as I thought of the time I took part in an expedition into the ruins of Bthuand seemed to satisfy him. While I was never part of the later missions to explore and guide the mages and scribes, I had heard stories from the other legionaries how it seemed to continue on deeper with ever passage they cleared and dug free of rubble.

 “I’ll put it this way,” he began, picking the dagger up and holding it on a 45-degree angle, point facing the fire. “Imagine that this blade represents the distance between us and Chorrol, and that the hilt represents a Dwemer city. The realm that Viconia is from is rumoured to be from is that deep into the ground it would take you that long just to reach the upper levels. Provided you made it that far against the Nine-only-knows-what lives in the darkness. There are stories of things in the deep places in the world, giant spiders, tribes of mutated cannibals, even tales of dragons. The only beings in all of Tamriel who would have the slightest clue to what exactly lives under our feet are the Dwemer themselves, and they took those secrets with them when they disappeared.”

 “Then how did she find her way up here?” the rabbits were cooking well and I turned them over carefully, watching as the stones heated up inside and roasted the meat fully. “Surely she can’t be the first.”

 “Finding out the answer to that question is up to you to find out I think.” Martin replied honestly. “But truth be told I have only heard of or read about rumours of their kind but outside of their name there is very little for us to go on. That in itself is a clue. The name _Drow_ is recognisable and is known, which means that out in the world there are those who have the knowledge of such things.”

 The silence between the two of us grew as our thoughts became our own, and he stared idly at his sketched map for several minutes as the rabbits sizzled on the fire. “Do you believe that I am the Emperor’s son?”

 I looked over to him to see more than just the night clouding his face in darkness. “I do. I’m almost certain of it.”

 “Almost certain?” for a moment there was flare of what appeared to be hope in his eyes.

 “Well, until you have the Amulet of Kings around your neck and a crown on your head I will still have some doubts.” My grin was enough to lighten his mood slightly. “I’m pragmatic like that.”

 “How are you so certain though?”

 I sighed, stretching out and feeling the breeze on my skin from where I had scrubbed it clean before Viconia had taken her turn. Cooking while filthy was never a good habit to get into if you wanted to not shit yourself to death. “You look like him and you seem to have the same strength as he did.”

 “You knew him?”

 “Only briefly.” I tapped the remnants of the brand on my shoulder again. “I deserted from the legion but got caught and thrown into the Imperial Prison. It just happened that the next day was when he and his guards decided to use the tunnel in my cell to escape the assassins.”

 The rabbits were close to cooked now. “It obviously didn’t work according to plan.”

 “That’s certainly a massive coincidence. You’re either the luckiest man in Tamriel or the Nine are deciding to play with your fate.”

 He saw the shudder that ran through me that had nothing to do with the night-time air. “Your fath- The _Emperor,_ ” I corrected myself for a second. “said something similar. Before he died he gave me the Amulet of Kings, told me to find the Blades and that only I could ‘ _Close shut the jaws of Oblivion_ ’. I’d almost prefer if it was down to something as simple as pure blind luck instead of being fated by the Gods for some indeterminable purpose.

 I scoffed momentarily. “But then again being that absurdly lucky means I’m probably beholden to Nocturnal and I don’t like the idea of having any deity messing with my fate, whether they be Aedra or Daedra.”

 Soft footsteps echoed from behind us and Viconia appeared by the fire, hair still wet but thankfully wearing clothes and reducing the threat of bodily harm if we looked in her direction. I pulled the rabbits out of the fire, using my sword to lift them out and handing the hot meals to them both. Viconia speared hers with a quick stab of her own dagger, stripping it carefully of flesh with her white teeth and sitting close enough to the fire that the dampness of her clothes dried quickly.

 Martin ate his as though he had been starving for days, his appetite being helped along by the amount of walking we had done and the fact he probably hadn’t had a decent meal since the night before the attack on the city. “I’m terrified that you are both right in this matter, that I am the Emperor’s Heir and that my entire life has been leading to this moment. I think we all prefer to believe that we are the ones in charge of our own fates, and that it is by the whim of gods that we do or experience the things we have.” His own pause was heavy with regret as memories resurfaced that he obviously preferred to keep buried. “But it appears that for the moment at least that the three of us have found our paths crossing. To what end it will lead, will be interesting to see at least.”

 Freshly bathed, equipment maintained as best we could and well fed on rabbit and hardtack we slept through the night. Viconia and I recommenced taking our turns and letting Martin sleep as best he could through the whole night to make up for his inexperience of such journeys. Carrying far less than us and not used to travel he still made good time as the three of us continued ever further north. I knew that despite the depths and size of the forest that it would be very hard to miss our destination. The City of Chorrol may be little more than a speck in comparison to the green depths where the entire might of every Imperial Legion could be swallowed up without a trace. It was far easier to come across the various roads and highways connecting the city and the surrounding hamlets and logging camps scattered about in the county. Even if we missed the minor settlements or the medium sized ones such as Hackdirt, there was no way that we could miss the primary highway and trade route running from the Imperial City into Hammerfell that went through and around Chorral. The cobblestoned road was wide enough for two wagons to pass each other without the threat of breaking a wheel or axle on the edges and it was well patrolled by legionaries and militia no matter where on the road you found yourself.

 For a further two nights we travelled through the forest, making good time despite Martin growing ever more fatigued and weary at the kilometres. We ate well however, managing to find collections of berries and other such foods within the forest as we travelled and between the small collection of mushrooms and other edibles Viconia was slowly learning more and more how to survive in the wild. On the third night we ate a hearty stew of Summer Botlet, venison and other herbs that left us all extremely satisfied. My own satisfaction was less from the meal and the taste and more from the fact that the deer had very little blood left in it once I had brought it back. The disgust I felt for myself could only overpower the thirst after I had sated myself on the coppery fluids, as beforehand there was no way that I could restrain my animalist urges.

 Away from the eyes of Viconia and Martin I tested myself and the changes that the curse had brought upon my body. I was stronger and faster now, noticeably so when I chose to utilise it. Where my new bow should have been an effort to pull back on with its 100 pound draw weight, my arms barely seemed to feel it. When hunting the deer, I had held the bow at full draw without even the slightest tremor as I counted the seconds under my breath. After reaching five hundred I had loosed and drew a second arrow back until its fletching tickled my right ear, feeling shocked at the sheer speed of my movements as the first arrow had barely managed to fly ten metres before I was ready to shoot again.

 The fact that I had felt other changes go through me as I tested myself with the hunt and with my bow was not lost on me. Pulling and drawing back on the bow so quickly had brought the beast to the surface, the skin of my face tightening and my incisors tingling as they prepared to slide out of my gums and bones. I could see better, hear more keenly and strike with all the force of a charging warhorse. I soon discovered that I had to be careful lest my new power was noticed, as for more or less the sake of it I had drawn my new sword and struck at a redwood sapling to see how much power I could put behind a blow. The sapling was as thick as my waist but didn’t stop the entire tree toppling over in an explosion of splinters and shards of wood as my sword connected and was driven through the trunk and out the other side.

 Viconia’s gaze was always upon both Martin and I, but it was obvious that she was watching me like an eagle. I even noticed on the odd occasion that we found ourselves close together that her body language would change, and it wasn’t unusual to find her doing certain things that would make me react in certain ways. From flicking a rock near my head while I wasn’t looking, to releasing a branch as she walked in front so it would flick back into my face I realised that she wasn’t acting out of spite but was testing me and what I could do. With the same impassionate gaze on her face she would try different things, all the while watching incredibly closely and mentally recording my every action with increasing interest.

 By the fourth evening we were well within the depths of the Great Forest and in the heart of county Chorrol. Making our way along a minor road which was little more than a dirt track heavily rutted with water runoff we made camp for the last evening before expecting to reach our destination. We were all tired and increasingly filthy from sweat and dirt that plastered itself and our clothes but now almost within sight of our destination our spirits were noticeably rising. Eating another hearty meal, drinking some of our dwindling water supplies we made camp on the tracks edge and slept through the nice undisturbed.

 Viconia and my routines were almost streamlined to perfection after over a week’s travel, taking our shifts and rising in the morning after half a dozen hours of sleep before dressing ourselves and continuing on. After four days of solid travel Martin too was falling into a routine and trudged through the kilometres without complaint and we made good time all things considered. Five days from the destruction of Kvatch we found ourselves within sight of the towering stone walls of Chorral and the tiny priory within the city’s shadow.

 Both Viconia and I travelled fully dressed now, no longer carrying the pieces of our armour and chainmail on our backs but instead dressed ourselves fully in its protection. After Kvatch we were no longer content with leaving ourselves in just our cloth and leather clothing but made our way through the forest jingling and clanking slightly. My new nature ensured that I barely even felt the difference in weight, in fact other than the few spots where the chainmail forced the layers of cloth and leather underneath to rub and pinch there was no discomfort at all. At that point I believed I could’ve wandered around in full legion plate and not notice the difference between it and wearing travelling clothes of the finest silk.

 During the travel I had also realised that not only my sight had improved by so did my other senses. My hearing was keener, supernaturally so and when I concentrated so did my sense of smell. As we made our way closer to the city I could smell the numerous bakeries’ goods as well as the acrid tang wafting from the several breweries scattered throughout the streets. Approaching the priory however soon left me with an increasingly all-too-familiar scent that my body could detect no matter how much I willed it not to.

 Blood was on the air, hot and fresh and immediately I felt my mouth moisten. The deer the previous days of travel was enough to put the thirst at bay for some time but it didn’t go far towards stopping the desires entirely. Someone was either dead or soon to be by the sheer force of the smell that left me yearning with a dark hunger. Without consciously noticing I had started moving quicker towards the priory and the sudden sprinting figure that burst through the creaking gate.

 The Dark Elf stable hand scrabbled and nearly tripped on the uneven cobblestone road as it put his head down and ran as fast as his legs could take him. It was a run of blind panic that only through luck sent him in our general direction and the complete opposite direction of the priory. His dark-grey face was now ashen, sickly grey with fear and almost before he realised it he was within an easy javelin throw of Vicona, Martin and myself. His eyes alighting on us for the first time he almost collapsed at our feet insensibly.

 “Help!” he spluttered, recognising Viconia and myself and gesturing wildly back at the priory. “You must help! They’re killing everyone at the Priory!”

 Instinctively my bow found itself in my hands, the leather travelling case suddenly empty as I pulled the string over the horn nocks without even looking at it.

 The sound of metal rasping on leather echoed through the air and Viconia drew her sword, her eyes suddenly bright and glowing with magical energies. For a second the Dunmer before us looked as though he expected us to cut him down where he stood. Before he could react I had moved closer to him, feeling with my right hand the handful of arrows in the quiver and plucking a bodkin from its resting place.

 “Tell us what’s going on. Who’s attacking?”

 There was a shrug. “I don’t know who they are, I was in the stable when they attacked. I heard talking and when I looked around the corner to see who it was I saw a group of them talking to Prior Maborel. They looked like travellers, just ordinary people.”

 “And then?” Viconia’s voice was as cold as the wind off the Sea of Ghosts.

 The Dunmer gulped, shying away from the witch-light emanating from Viconia’s eyes and the coldness of her expression. “Suddenly weapons appeared in their hands and the cut the Prior down before he could move! They… they saw me watching and I just ran!”

 As a single group we all looked up at the priory, seeing nothing out of the ordinary but the smell of blood and the stink of magicka was wafting on the breeze. For a heartbeat I felt as though we were standing before the walls of Kvatch engulfed in its inferno of death, but other than the stench there was no sign that anything was wrong.

 “Where’s Jauffre?”

 Another shrug. “I don’t know, in the Chapel praying I think. You must help us!”

 I pushed past him, arrow gripped tight in my fingers and bow ready to be drawn back at a moment’s notice. Viconia strode beside me, power erupting from her body as she prepared herself for the potential fight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Martin start forward to follow us and I turned with a snarl.

 “Stay here and get out of sight you fool!” I hissed, and for a second he wavered before his gaze hardened in an all-too familiar expression. In an instant any doubt that he was not of the Emperor’s blood faded at the similarity.

 “I’m coming with you. I think I’m safer closer to you than trying to hide from any potential ambush!”

 For a second I went to argue but the sudden movement within the priory stopped the words before they reached my throat. Darting figures in black swarmed between the buildings, obviously hunting for something or someone. Within seconds they spotted us, and seeing the weapons in our hands and our armoured bodies, they recognised the threat and rushed us as a group.

 There were nearly a dozen of them, black-clad in horrific daedric plate that I was now all too familiar with. In pale mockeries of the Dremora that Viconia and I had faced they scuttled forward, brandishing weapons of black obsidian and serrated wickedly. Flowing blood red cloth clung between the black plates, fluttering slightly as they ran howling at us with little thought of their own personal safety. There was no mistaking their allegiance with the daedra responsible for the destruction of Kvatch but also those few that had murdered the Emperor and most of his bodyguard.

 I fired the first arrow without hesitation, the bodkin making a complete mockery of the daedric plate they wore and dropping the first hard to the ground. The armour dissolved in seconds, the wicked point of the arrow jutting from the back of the cultist’s skull from the power I had leant into the bow and the solid impact of the corpse smashing face first into the cobblestones.

 Even before the first collapsed my second arrow was already in flight, snapping out and crossing the space between us and the baying maniacs almost faster than the eye could see. It hammered into the chest of a second armoured form, a female from the sudden sucking cries of pain as she clutched at the feathered shaft where it had punched into the pectorals of the daedric breastplate. The third dropped to his knees convulsing as my third arrow, a deep tanged broad head ripped into his stomach with enough force to cut through the armour but not enough to continue deep enough to cause crippling damage. Even as the others rushed forward he struggled to his feet after the power of the impact had sent him sprawling, crying inarticulate howls of rage and pain as the movements twisted the arrow in his belly.

 While reducing the numbers there were still easily three each against us, including the extremely hesitant Martin as he drew a dagger from his robes and held it in front of himself as though it was a ward to the onrushing violence. I cursed him both mentally and verbally, ripping my new sword from its sheath and stepping between the cultists and the last heir to the throne.

 Viconia exploded into savage action just as the first reached our tiny group, suddenly bursting with energy both physical and magical and leaving a pair of the plated attackers as corpses with the armour melting into nothingness. One dropped with a shriek, the bolt of lightning hitting him square in the chest and leaving the man to twitch and convulse as every nerve burnt out in an instant. Another appeared to run headfirst into a wall of solid air, bouncing away with a sickening crack of broken bone and splintered teeth. The ward of energy she threw in front of the charging cultist only lasted for a split second but left him as a corpse on the ground, his neck twisted at an obscene angle from the force of the impact. Within seconds the odds had been reduced dramatically but it still left us both with our fair share of attackers.

 I too burst into activity, twisting aside as one of them slashed out with a dagger that gleamed wetly with blood that stained it and its wielder’s arm to the elbow. While never what I’d considered to be an expert swordsman I found myself thankful that the Legion put so much effort into training it’s recruits as thoroughly as it did. Legionaries were taught the art of fighting behind shield and heavy armour, to stab and thrust in economical movements that allowed them to grind foes that outnumbered them innumerable times over into the ground. Foresters however were taught to fight single handed, relying on speed and dexterity to dodge, duck, weave and parry attacks as it was impossible to wield a bow and a shield at the same time.

 Against these foes I quickly realised that there wasn’t a trained swordsman or soldier in the lot. Each attached wildly, screaming and rushing blindly forward and almost announcing their attacks with as much effectiveness as requesting to do so in writing. The first attack missed by a considerable margin, hitting nothing but air as I twisted to one side and stepped back slightly even as my attacker tried to follow through with a gut-tearing strike that would’ve done damage if it had hit an unarmoured man. This attack missed as well and I stepped forward inside his guard, feeling the third and final strike bounce off my chainmail and padded gambeson underneath as he tried to cut through the tiny loops of steel. If he had the experience or knowledge to stab instead or trying to slash it may have done some damage but instead I saw the glints of fear behind the snarling daedric mask, right before I punched the tip of my sword into his armpit where there was no armour to protect him.

 Contemptuously I flicked the corpse off my sword, seeing the cultists becoming wary now that they had lost five of their number without inflicting as much as a scratch. Taking the initiative, I stepped forward swinging at the three facing me and forcing them to step away from Martin at my back. A pair of maces and a sword were held in the inexperienced hands of the attackers and instead of rushing me and taking advantage of their numbers they got in each other’s way and made it easier for me to kill.

 A mace clattered to the cobblestones even as it began to disappear into nothing with its owner’s armour along with it. An enormous smile had opened on the cultist’s throat as I sliced my blade through the soft part of the gorget, cutting right back to the spine and leaving the female Dunmer to attempt to staunch the flow of blood with her hands. The swordsman jumped forward lightly on his feet, putting all of his weight into a single lunge that would’ve skewered me even if I wore full plate armour. Instead I turned to my left, grabbing him by the wrist and hacking down with the full enhanced strength of a vampire just above his elbow. The blow sheared through daedric armour, flesh and bone and left me holding the twitching forearm as the cultist screamed in pain, falling away with blood spurting horribly from the wound.

 The remaining cultist facing me stopped, hesitated and turned to flee but didn’t get more than two paces away before feeling a grip of iron latch onto his shoulder. Yanked off his feet, three feet of sharpened steel suddenly materialised from the centre of his chest, cutting his heart in half and killing him before the realisation of what had happened managed to set in.

 In the space of seconds, a dozen of the armoured attackers were dead and their blood staining the ground and our swords. The last of the pitiful amateurs; the leathery skinned bosmer who I had struck in the stomach with an arrow had attempted to lunge at Viconia as he tried to rise from a kneeling position. With a hand still grasping the shaft lodged in his belly he roared and struck out at her with his gleaming sword, putting the last of his strength into the single blow. Viconia instead contemptuously knocked the sword strike away with a negligent flick of a wrist, twisting the blade in her hand and dragging the edge across his throat that left him vomiting and coughing blood.

 A dozen daedric plated cultists were left as a dozen corpses, their bodily fluids leaking out between the cobblestones and armour and weapons dissolving into the breeze. The last of them, a tall Nord gasped her last as Viconia strode over to her and stabbed once without even a glance at her downed adversary.

 “Right then.” My sword returned to its sheath and I picked up my bow from where I had dropped it. Martin stood a few paces away from the slaughter, hand still clutching his dagger in a hand visibly shaking and noticeably pale as he looked over the carnage that Viconia and I had left strewn across the road.

 “Are you okay?” I asked unnecessarily in time to see him stumble over to the edge of the road and vomit noisily into the gutter.

 “Gods’ blood.” He stammered, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and making an effort not to look at the bodies. “Now I know how you two braved Oblivion and lived.”

 I chuckled darkly, glancing about for the stable hand and seeing little more than a rapidly fading blur down the road. He had taken the opportunity to make a dash further from the death and carnage of the priory while we fought and there was no time to chase after him even if we had the inclination.

 “There still more.” Viconia called out, weapon still gripped tightly in her hand, and Martin and I shared a glance.

 “Are you going to stay out of the way?” he nodded at my question while still looking very pale at the sight of so much death.

 Moving quickly the three of us jogged to the fence surrounding the priory, seeing the well-maintained gardens crushed underfoot and the body of Prior Maborel laying on his back in the tiny pathway. A look of complete astonishment was frozen on his blood splattered features, a staining cloud leaking through his robes where his assassins had stabbed him right in the heart and killing him before he realised what had happened.

 Several more daedric forms moved quickly about the priory, kicking in doors and searching for the others. The sounds of metal on metal echoed from the interior of the tiny chapel and another pair of assassins rushed out from the stables at the sounds of our approach, hurling incoherent warcries as soon as they caught sight of us.

 One immediately folded over before he could make it more than a handful of paces, the wicked point of the bodkin arrow punching through his breastplate with enough force to break ribs by the impact alone. The other seemed to hesitate in mid stride, glancing at their fallen companion for a second too long as Viconia rushed forward spitting curses in her native tongue. Too late did they realise the threat that they faced, twisting and trying to back away from the onrushing elf and unsuccessfully warding off her flurry of attacks. Faster than the eye could see Viconia had slashed away at the plated assassin, cutting the muscles in a leg, hacking a hand off at the wrist before punching her sword through the assassin’s heart that left two foot of blade erupting from between the shoulder blades.

 “ _Vith’os_!” She snarled, hurling the body aside and finishing the other off with an economical stab where the breastplate met the neck.

 The door of the chapel burst open in a flurry of brown, the aging form of Jauffre appearing in the threshold and still riding the combat high of adrenaline. His katana held in a double grip and plastered with blood there was no identifying the aged monk that we had met so many days ago. Instead there remained the hardened leader of the Emperor’s elite, a persona that I suspect he had never wished to return to but was no less deadly as a result.

 “You’re back!” he exclaimed as he almost skidded to a halt in recognition. “Thank Talos!”

 “Jauffre! What in the name of the Nine is going on here?” I slung my bow over my shoulders and drew my sword again in a white knuckled hand.

 “They attacked without warning. I was praying in the Chapel when I heard Prior Maborel shout. Who are these people?”

 “They are the same ones who killed the Emperor.” Jauffre’s face darkened in anger at my words and I suddenly felt very small in sight of his building rage. “Why the hell would they attack here?”

 Viconia, Jaufree and myself suddenly twitched as the electric current of realisation ran through all of us simultaneously. “The Amulet!” Jauffre was suddenly moving like a Khajitt dosed up on skooma but many times deadlier. “I kept it in a secret room in Weynon House!”

 We moved as one, bursting into sprints that carried us to the smashed down door of the main Priory building. I caught a glance at the chapel as Jauffre ran from the door and the scene of utter carnage within. A handful of assassins had been found wanting at the attempt to take the life of the Grandmaster of the Blades and were left in piles of gore and limbs as a result. He was over twice my age but what the years had managed take away from him in strength of body they had added to the sheer level of experience and confidence that no one could match.

 The interior of the priory was a shambles, book cases rent and torn, beds overturned and mattress stuffing thrown about in an orgy of destruction. There was not a single cupboard that wasn’t smashed into kindling and every chest, crate, book, container and barrel had been ripped open and upended in the minutes since the attack. On the second floor however in Jauffre’s study the wall itself had been torn down to reveal a tiny room barely large enough for someone to stand, and the iron-banded chest within had been blasted open with an explosive force of magicka that left the teeth tingling from the residue.

 At the sight of the destroyed chest and its obviously empty interior Jauffre roared, punching into the wall with enough force that plaster cracked and shattered. “They’ve taken it!” the sheer amount of rage and frustration sending a tremble through his body. “The Amulet of Kings is gone! These bastards have defeated us at every turn!”

 He suddenly looked his age as he glanced at each of us in turn, seeing the blood and gore and days’ worth of travel etched into our flesh and clothes. As his eyes alighted on Martin, standing in the doorway and looking completely bewildered at the devastation and events that he was struggled to cope with, Jauffre’s face lit up from the expression of anger that had consumed it.

 “So it has not all gone against us at least, thank Talos for that!”

 Martin looked even more out of his depth as the aged Blade strode over to him and shook his hand in a grip that left the priest rubbing his knuckles. “We gained Uriel’s heir, but have lost the Amulet of Kings.”

 “Martin, this is Jauffre.” I said, introducing them properly despite the ruin that surrounded us. Martin needed something to focus on other than the death he had just witnessed. “He is the Grandmaster of the Blades and the one who sent us to find you.”

 “And it is a good thing too that I sent you both!” Jauffre moved with a purpose now, stalking about and pulling out a handful of unbroken items from within his study. “But he cannot stay here. We may have driven them off but they will be back once they realise who he and that he survives thus far. If they knew of the Amulet’s presence here, then they certainly will return to finish the job.”

 “Where can we go?” Viconia was rifling her way through some of the detritus on the floor and pocketing anything that caught her eye. Jauffre didn’t seem to mind or notice in the slightest.

 “Nowhere is truly safe against whatever power is arrayed against us I fear.” Jauffre had shed his robes and replaced it with a well-worn set of travelling clothes and boiled leather armour with metal strips banding it together. A set of saddlebags were thrown over his shoulder as well, his katana finding its way into the scabbard at his hip. “But we must play for time at least…”

 A lengthy breath sighed out of him and he rubbed at the congealing blood that had sprayed his face. “Cloud Ruler Temple, the hidden fortress of the Blades is our best option I think. It’s in the mountains north of Bruma and a few men can and have held it against armies before.”

 “That’s at least a three-day march to get there, maybe less if we travel cross-country.”

 “There’s no time to make the journey on foot I fear.” Jauffre quickly rummaged through a small collection of pouches where they had fallen to the floor. The jingle of coins was audible as he scooped them up and tossed a couple to each of us. “We have minutes to leave before the guard arrive and hold us up with unnecessary questions and possibly even lock us away while they attempt to understand all this. We can’t afford to be held up and we certainty can’t take our time making it between here and Cloud Ruler. I won’t rest easy until Martin is safe.”

 His look of utter seriousness was almost a physical force as he looked over the three of us. “I hope you all can ride.”

 My sudden and vulgar epithet made him smile. “Spoken like a true legionary,” his grin was almost infectious despite my dislike of travelling on horseback. “But there’s no quicker way to reach the fortress. We’ll take the Priory’s horses to the eastern post and not stop until we reach the Fortress.”

 Together the four of us left the priory in a hurry, past the several dead bodies littering the grounds and quickly saddled the horses in the stables. Thankfully the half dozen mares were not overly spooked from the fighting and the smell of blood that hung heavy in the air but they were overly skittish all the same. Although I had some experience in riding, as a legionary and especially a forester it was never formalised training, it barely even qualified as a hobby. Viconia seemed to be the same as myself, needing Martin and Jauffre to help the two of us throw saddles over the beasts and secure them tightly to their backs.

 We left in time to see the first handful of guards marching from the city to investigate the disturbance and the growing collection of curious travellers who had reported the sights and sounds of fighting at the priory. They could only watch as the four of us spurred our rides and broke into a light gallop down the road to the east, leaving behind the steaming corpses of the dead for them to deal with. Nothing was left to chance however, Viconia and I quickly rummaging through the broken and rent bodies and ensuring that none of them happened to have the Amulet on their persons before we left the scene of devastation. I noted uneasily that all of those who had attacked were dressed in normal travellers clothing, dressed as though they were nothing more than a simple trading caravan. From the slightly overweight form of an Imperial man in a fine doublet that would be unremarkable on any merchant or trader, to the handful of leather-and padded cloth clad caravan hands there was nothing to identify these men and women as a band of bloodthirsty assassins. Especially not a group that had cut down a defenceless Prior without hesitation and attempted to slaughter a group of monks.

 Covering the ground at a rapid pace we bounced and jostled along the road to the nearest watch post and its collection of horses. Within minutes I already had enough of being in the saddle, my back and hips already beginning to ache slightly from the motions and steeling myself for a long journey in distance rather than time. Jauffre set the pace on the back of his paint mare, riding her hard until the towering stone watch house rose above the vegetation. There we stopped briefly, exchanging our steeds for fresher, hardier looking horses well used to the rigours of the Imperial Messenger Service with barely even a sideways glance from the watch commander. The broken-toothed guard with a pox-scarred face had briefly spoken to Jauffre but with a few quiet words, and a handful of coins greasing a palm we were off again, riding even harder down the road in an effort to leave the county and the devastated priory behind.

 For hours we rode, travelling no slower than a canter and breaking into a gallop at every opportunity despite the protests of our tortured bodies. Jauffre alone seemed to be the only one of our group unaffected by the punishing speed we pushed the horses to, and although the kilometres faded into the distance every bump and jolt would send fresh spurts of agony through our bodies. Completely unused to riding, especially any significant distances let alone at speed my entire world seemed to shrink into a closely packed ball of agony. My hips and legs spread apart and aching with every motion, my thighs heavily chafed and soon I found my neck muscles locked with a splitting headache building behind the eyes. Even the growing thirst, normally impossible to ignore had vanished under the rolling waves of agony that buffered me with every hoof strike.

 The journey however, despite seemingly lasting forever and into the deepening darkness of night went without incident and we made an incredible distance in a seemingly impossible time. The journey that Viconia and I had undertaken from Bruma that had taken three days’ cross country on foot, took the four of us on horseback less than a total night of travel at what I considered break-neck speeds.

 The forests of Chorrol were replaced with the rolling hills and towering summits of stone of the Jerral Mountains and yet we still rode. Past the dozens of tiny campsites of travellers and caravans who had stopped for a night’s rest we continued on, only stopping the ever constant travel at each Watch post to swap our panting steeds with fresh rides and grease the palms of the sergeants and ex-legionaries manning the towers and stables. Jauffre left nothing to chance and relentlessly drove us on with all the skill and unflinching toughness of the most seasoned centurion, refusing to rest or even stop for anything. Several times the dust of the road was sluiced off our horse’s flanks as we emptied our bladders in the saddle, not once stopping and even eating as best we could in the bouncing, jerking motion of half a tonne of horseflesh pounding hooves into the road.

 In the early hours of the morning, with the faintest hint of light beginning to reveal itself on the horizon we found ourselves high in the ranges above Bruma and in the shadows of Pale Pass. The maintained and solid-footing of the Imperial Highways crossing between the major cities of Cyrodiil and the frontiers was now replaced with the winding shale and granite tracks that led further into the dizzying heights of the mountains. Finally slowing to what I considered to be more reasonable speeds we allowed our most recent mounts to suck in great breaths of the frigid, thinning air as we climbed. The path was tiny, only enough room for a single cart or wagon at a time and winding further up the slopes with the twinkling lights of Bruma a handful of kilometres below us.

 In our own agony we had no appreciation of the sights around us, or the towering walls that jutted from the sides of the sheer cliffs facing us. A hundred kilometres distant, the entirety of the Imperial city could be seen in its majestic glory, burning with the lights of civilisation and surrounded by the impressive expanse of water that was Lake Rumare and where it fed into the Niben.

 Cloud Ruler Temple was built into the side of a cliff that matched the dizzying heights of White Gold Tower, safely secure next to the unscaleable precipice that only the most confident of mages could successfully traverse and only then with potent levitation magicka. The walls of the Fortress-monastery jutted forward in a thick U shape, the flat section built into the cliff and the bottom of the curve home to a gigantic gate twelve metres high and flanked by towers. Built from perfectly shaped stones as heavy as a horse, and almost as large there were little siege engines capable of reducing such defences. This was especially the case as the only way such machines could get within range was to be individually brought up the winding slope and be harassed by fire from the defenders every step of the way. Jauffre was indeed correct in the statement that a few within the fortress could hold off an army. Even a dozen could comfortably defend the road from the towering walls with little to fear from any number of foes.

 Saddle-sore and weary to the point of collapse we initially didn’t notice the armoured figures on the walls, pointing a collection of bows and crossbows in our direction as we plodded ever onwards. Jauffre’s raised hand and cry of greeting was lost to the wind that flowed over from the north and tundras of Skyrim’s interior but the surprise of those manning the fortress was not. Grinding forward and opening to reveal a set of stairs rising up the throat of the fortress the massive gates swung wide, and a handful of armoured and cloaked figures appeared to grasp our reins.

 “Grandmaster!? We were not expecting you.” a voice of one of the figures called out. They all moved with the predatory grace of a wolf as they fanned out and began to lead us into and up the stairs. Inside I could see that the walls were not constructed the same as the curtain walls of a city but in fact were extensions of the upper level of the Fortress itself. This meant that even if an enemy was able to force their way through the gates, they would then have to contend with fighting their way up several dozen short spaced stairs that made it dangerous to find footing while facing a foe.

 “Circumstances have led us here earlier than I expected Cyrus.” Jauffre replied as he slid from the saddle and finally seemed to be showing signs of his real age. “I do trust that everything has been prepared?”

 “Yes Grandmaster.” There was a moment of hesitation as the armoured figure addressing Jauffre looked over our small group and stared at Martin climbing out of his saddle. “That means… is this…?”

 There was a nod. “This is the Emperor’s son, Martin Septim.”

 To a man the group of Blades surrounding us tensed and bowed deeply at the hips, leaving Martin looking extremely embarrassed even despite the obvious amount of pain and discomfort he and the rest of us were experiencing.

 “My Lord!” the Blade Cyrus said, resting his fist against his chest in the manner of the legion. “Welcome to Cloud Ruler Temple! We have not had the honour of an Emperor’s visit in many years!”

 “Cyrus…” Jauffre’s voice was weary and using a tone as though he was speaking to a troubled pupil.

 “Yes Grandmaster?”

 “Introductions will have to wait. We all have travelled a long way and are in need of rest and hot meals before anything else.”

 “Uh… Yes, Grandmaster.”

 Cyrus whistled to the handful of Blades facing us, and quickly gestured and ordered them to various tasks and duties. They initially shied away from myself and Viconia, more for the fact that as Viconia slid out of her saddle without her usual grace and agility. The rapid and breathless stream of curses in Drow was enough of the hardened bodyguards of the Emperor to hesitate in rendering her any form of assistance as she staggered bow legged from her horse. Complaining of chafing and cursing every man, mer, daedra, plant and creature in existence in an increasingly lengthy list that never seemed to repeat itself she refused all attempts of help, forcing her back straight and legs back into a normal position with little hint at the pain that we all were feeling.

 I too more fell out of the saddle than clambered down gracefully, more sore than what I had been in years since my initial Legion training and feeling like a group of orcs had taken great pleasure in beating me with clubs all over my body. Everything everywhere hurt and I felt like I could sleep for an entire week as I forced myself to ignore the fact that the chafing and rubbing had split the skin in places that would prove difficult to heal or not aggravate further.

 The gates behind us closed with groans of cold wood and steel, our panting horses led off to the small stable built on top of the walls while we as a group we lead away with what was obviously a guard of honour. Grunting, cursing and grimacing with pain and fatigue we all made our way inside the central hall built into the side of the mountain, feeling some relief from the howling winds of the Jeral’s by the sight of a roaring fire in a stone heath.

 Viconia and I were led into a bunkhouse that was more barracks than anything, while Jauffre and Martin were led in different directions to quarters obviously set aside for the Grandmaster of their order and whatever accommodation was present for the Emperor or other dignitaries. At that point Jauffre had spared a few words to us, telling us to rest and recuperate and that he would send for us when we were needed. Otherwise we found ourselves guests of one of the most secretive of martial orders in the Empire, a situation that both of us took advantage of fully by passing out into the first beds we were told were ours.

 Dawn had broken in the hours after we arrived but neither of us rose for what felt as though an age. Fully clothed and still dressed in our armour we had simply collapsed into heaps and allowed ourselves to be claimed by fatigue. It didn’t matter that the bedding was as Spartan as any self-respecting legion’s; at that point after half a day of riding further and faster than either of us had ever thought possible it was more luxurious than the most pampered Altmer noble’s divan.

 It was past mid-day by the time I awoke, feeling somewhat refreshed and entirely in need for a hot bath and some form of restoration magicka to assist with the fact that I hurt _everywhere_ , even in places I didn’t know existed. Taking the advice from the few Blades that seemed to make the Fortress their home I made my way to the bathhouse dug into the stone of the mountain, where some form of heated spring bubbled up from the depths and provided a source of additional warmth, fresh drinking water and the perfect opportunity for heated pools for bathing. The fortress was almost older than the Empire and despite its martial nature it was lived in and comfortable, the signs of countless Blades having made this their home over the centuries right down to the fact that the tiles underfoot were worn completely smooth but hundreds of feet.

 Dressed in little more than a fresh set of robes provided by the Blades I felt more human and alive in months, skin blooming with heat and cleanliness after what appeared to be a lifetime of grime and travel was scrubbed off with rough towels. The fortress was extremely well built, styled in the unusual architecture of what I was soon told was ancient Akaviri by one of the several Blades that always seemed to be hovered nearby. I knew that we may be welcomed somewhat into their sanctum but there was no way we were going to be trusted right away, especially with what they saw to be the last surviving heir back under their protection.

 I wandered my way through the fortress, looking and studying everything I could with a strange sense of curiosity. It was built with defence in mind, from the source of incorruptible drinking water from the depths of the mountain to the narrow corridors that restricted the use of swords and other lengthy weapons. Even the two hundred metre cliff face that it had been built inside stopped all but the most desperate or determined of attackers from scaling the “weaker” side. There were storage rooms with ice and freezing enchantments built into the walls and floor containing months and months of supplies and food for a hundred or more soldiers. Other storerooms were filled to the brim with racks of equipment, weapons, armour, arrows and ballista bolts for the pair of siege engines built on the towers adjacent the gate. The walls were thick and rounded to assist in deflecting any form of ammunition thrown at it by the rare few trebuchets and catapults that could be brought close enough to hit them and even a quick glance over the gates revealed ancient but no less potent spells of warding and protection that gave the solid wood an immunity to whatever spells could be brought against it.

 It was easy to see why Jauffre had chosen such a place to keep Martin safe. With the Blades defending the walls there would be few foes who would even contemplate a suicidal assault, and the sheer quantity of supplies and equipment stored away meant that Jauffre and the more senior blades had a higher chance of dying of old age than starvation in the case of a siege.

 The views were astonishing, allowing a perfectly clear view of the far away Imperial City, the sprawling hub of Bruma and the winding path leading through the Pale Pass to the North and the Skyrim border. The Jerals towered above us with their unscaleable peaks and white caps of snow, and the splashed colours of green and blue mixed in with the rocky grey-brown of the mountains and highlands until it appeared to be little more than an oil painting created by the hand of a master.

 The courtyard on the surface level echoed of softly spoken prayers and the sounds of metal on metal as several of the Blades sparred and practiced or taught the newer members of their order. They practiced with bows, swords, shields and were always fully dressed in their signature splint mail armour unless they were undertaking their other duties. Every man and woman in the walls was a fighter of incredible ability but all had responsibilities within the fortress as well. They would cook, clean, maintain the walls and equipment and even the toiling sound of a smithing hammer announced the presence of a blacksmith from a soot-stained smithy built down a set of stair in a lower level. It was a peaceful place to find myself in but the cold wind of the mountains ensured that initially I spent little time outside.

 Inside the main hall the temperature was more comfortable and unlike the rest of the fortress it was built for comfort. An enchanted fire blazed away permanently in the hearth on the opposite side to the double doors leading to the stairs and the gates. A handful of tables were arrayed either side, piled with clean plates and eating utensils where a handful of younger looking Blades cleaned up from the lunchtime meals. The smells of cooking meat wafted from the kitchen on the opposite side to the dormitories and bunkhouse, and I found myself realising it was the better part of a day since I had last eaten.

 With a plate of various leftovers, I made my way from the kitchen to the roaring hearth were a handful of senior Blades stood and sat around the figures of Jauffre and Martin. They were all in deep conversation and Martin looked a combination of terrified and utterly embarrassed at their attentions. Viconia was there as well, but clearly not taking part in the conversation despite obviously listening in.

 “I know you all expect me to be Emperor.” I caught Martin say as I walked over to them with a mouthful of roast chicken. “I’ll do my best, but this is all new to me.”

 He looked over the huddled group and I saw how the Blades around him were senior officers and commanders, highly experienced individuals and most likely the next highest ranks in their order besides Jauffre. “I’m not used to giving speeches, but I wanted you all to know that I appreciate your welcome here. I hope I prove myself worthy of your loyalty in the coming days.”

 “Our focus other than your continued safety and health,” Jauffre began, “is to track down these assassins or cultists or whatever they may be and find out the reason behind their attacks. Also we need to find why they went to so much effort to get the Amulet of Kings.”

 He turned and looked at one of the powerful looking Blades sitting astride a stool that seemed to struggle with his bulk. “Captain?”

 The Blade, obviously the commander of the fortress scratched at his scalp with an armoured finger. “We have enough supplies for 10-15 years and I have sent out recall notices for most members scattered throughout Cyrodiil. Over the next month our strength should increase to just over a hundred members.”

 “Excellent.” Jauffre turned to another Blade standing near the roaring fire. “Belisarius?”

 “Sir?” The darker skinned Imperial leant with his arms folded across his chest and returned his commander’s gaze, the growl of his Colovian accent turning the word into a snarling ‘ _Sahr?_ ’

 “What is the progress of the investigations into the murders?”

 “ _Sahr,_ several of my men had followed up on leads, done the usual questioning and a handful of interrogations but there hasn’t been anything substantial yet. There are always dozens of groups or individuals plotting some form of coup or to overthrow the throne but whoever these people are they have excellent methods of covering their tracks.”

 “So no leads at all?”

 “Not at this time but Baurus is currently in the Imperial City leading the primary investigation. He’s been tracking down the Emperor’s murderers and trying to work out how they knew about the escape route.”

 “They seem to know an awful amount about us Grandmaster.” The Blade who had greeted us in the morning spoke this time, tapping a finger to his lips thoughtfully. “I think we really need to consider the potential of a traitor in our ranks.”

 “The thought had crossed my mind, but they knew exactly where to find the Amulet of Kings despite only three individuals in all of Tamriel knowing that it was at the Priory.” There was an uncomfortable pause as they all suddenly turned and gazed and Viconia and I felt as though I should’ve come armed.

 “I can vouch for their trustworthiness,” Jauffre’s words snuffed any tension from the room like a cup over a lit candle. “And besides, I hardly expect that they went to all the effort of rescuing Martin and bringing him to us if they were working for the enemy.”

 He turned and motioned to Viconia and I to come closer to their group and nodded cryptically to one of the younger Blades standing off to the side of the hearth. “Speaking of which, I think it is about time that you two are properly rewarded for your actions.”

 The young blade returned, carrying a pair of wooden carrying cases beautifully wrought engravings and etched in silver, handing them to the Blades Grandmaster without ceremony.

 “We are not big on formalities and barely have any formal rites to speak of when inducting new members into our order.” He carefully stood up with both of the chests sitting on a low table near the fire. “However is it customary that each member receives a sword of their own to represent their service to the Empire.”

 With deft hands he unclasped the locks keeping the thin chests closed, motioning for us to step closer to him and the small group that was suddenly huddled around us. Inside each box, placed in their immaculate velvet interior and wrapped in silken cloth was a single sword of incredible craftsmanship.

 “While most Blades would receive a katana, I recognise the unusual situation that has found the two of you in our service. As such we have found weapons suitable for you.”

 The first he pulled out and reverently slid the protective layers of cloth aside to reveal a gleaming ebony sword that was of such ancient Akavir design that it looked to be more of a rapier than a more traditional katana. Its edge was sharp enough that it almost appeared to be able to cut a candle’s flame in half, and other than the swirled waves that travelled up the edge of the perfectly forged metal there was not a blemish to be seen. Sixty centimetres of beaten ebony had been folded over innumerable times to create a blade capable of cutting a soul in half, light enough to be wielded in one hand and strong enough that there could be little in the world of Mundus capable of damaging such a blade.

 “This is _Dragonbane_.” He explained, holding it out hilt first to Viconia who carefully grasped it by the hilt. “It’s one of the oldest and most ancient of our order from before we served the Emperors. Our legends state that this sword was used during the days where our order hunted the great Wyrms of the north and assisted in their eventual extinction. It is now yours to carry.”

 Viconia’s eyes were alight with pleasure as she felt the weight of the sword and held it as though it had been made specially for her. A savage pleasure filled her face with a warm glow that was almost sexual in nature, giving an almost imperceptible nod to Jauffre as she stepped back.

 “And you Kaius, we gift you with _Sunchild_.” He pulled the length of the second blade out of its case, revealing a gleaming hand-and-a-half sword with a curved blade and single edge. From the hilt to the tip it was beautifully fashioned, razor sharp and appearing almost freshly forged despite the fact that it was exceedingly old. Its ruby red hilt had enough space to be wielded with one or both hands and it was inarguably elven-made, formed from a silvery metal that I could not identify.

 “This blade is older than the Empire and is unbreakable as far as we can tell.” Jauffre and the others laughed among themselves for a moment as I held the sword aloft and studied its incredible quality. “So we’d appreciate it if you didn’t lose it.”

 “For a blade such as this I’ll come back from the dead.” I replied, making them chuckle again.

 “Good. You both can consider yourselves to be members of the Blades from this point onwards. While this means that you will be subject to our commands you will be what we consider “free agents”. You can come and go as you please and feel free to have Cloud Ruler as your home.”

 “I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

 “Indeed.” Jauffre’s face became stern once more. “We are faced against a conspiracy of unbelievable scope and power and your actions and success thus far has proven more than just your loyalty to the Empire. I believe that we will all have need of you both in the coming weeks.”

 A ghost of a grin surfaced. “Rest up while you can, I have drafted up official pardons for you both meaning that you won’t have to worry about finding yourselves in jail again for your actions. It will take some time for them to get ratified by the Legion and the Bruma guard, so I wouldn’t go wandering around anywhere for the next few days at least until the paperwork is taken care of.”

 “So we simply have to wait until we’re no longer branded as criminals?” Viconia seemed to be in brighter spirits with a weapon that matched her cold beauty clasped by her side.

 “Indeed, make yourselves at home. I do believe that we’ll be able to find you something productive to do in the coming days.”

 And so Viconia and I found ourselves with little to do but wander the walls, repairing our equipment and replacing some of the worst pieces with whatever we could find in the dusty vaults and armouries within Cloud Ruler. During the days that followed we found ourselves welcomed by the normally stern members of the Emperor’s bodyguards/spies and it wasn’t long before we both found ourselves being drawn into their training sessions to learn how to wield our new swords. Other times I would find myself within the fortress’s smithy with Ferrum, the Blade responsible for maintaining, repairing and forging new equipment for the order’s members. The aging Redguard had been wielding a smithing hammer since before he could properly lift one and seemed to have the same level of skill in the art of metal as what the rest of the order had with the blades that came from the heart of his forge. Between him and his young Dunmer apprentice they beat and blasted the metal, forging gleaming swords by folding over the same piece of metal hundreds, if not thousands of times over and over again depending on the quality of the materials at hand. Each blade would take months to forge and the only real tradition the order had was that each member would have their own unique blade to call their own. To this regard the main hall was lined with hundreds of swords, each locked to the wooden beams and decorating the ceiling and walls with overlapping edges that still gleamed with sharpness despite the years they had sat still since the death of their wielders.

 Between Ferrum’s skill with the hammer and the collection of materials and pre-forged equipment within the fortress, both Viconia and I had ensured that we were outfitted the best we could be. Thick tunics and under layers of cloth would soften the impacts of any blows, and new suits of chainmail forged from a mithril-steel alloy were found that required only minor adjustments to fit us perfectly. My increased strength allowed me to feel comfortable in thicker layers of armour, and after our expedition into Oblivion I now felt more comfortable relying on additional protection as well as the greater agility afforded to me by the vampiric curse. Eschewing a helmet for a combination of mask, coif and hood I could still wield a bow with deadly accuracy but now I appeared more in kin to a Legion archer preparing for a major battle than the light armoured form of a forester. A breastplate of steel with the overlapping protection of a gorget and pauldrons covered my torso and a combination of rerebrace and vambraces for my arms covered my arms. My hands were left free of any gauntlets, instead being covered in the supple grey-black gloves made from minotaur leather. The same material made up most of the underlying padding between the shifting chainmail and cloth tunic and pants after finding several pelts within the depths of the fortress. They had been stored for a long time judging by the potency of the wards within the rooms, but between myself and a female Blade named Jena who seemed considerably skilled as a seamstress and tailor they were soon turned into comfortable clothing.

 My lower torso was covered by a set of metal faulds, the bands connected to the bottom of my breastplate with leather straps and buckles and covering down to mid-thigh. Mail chausses were strapped under this to cover the rest of my body not covered by the hauberk. Even despite the nature of the chainmail I soon found myself practicing moving stealthily through the fortress, learning how the materials moved and slid against the skin and cloth. It wasn’t long before I realised that I could glide about without raising anything more than a whisper of sound to betray my presence. Through a combination of my own natural skill gained from a lifetime of hunting and the curse thundering its way in my veins I was just as stealthy in my new suit of armour as what I was in a cloak and minotaur leather tunic.

 During the evenings, and more often than not I would find myself spending time with Martin. Both of us felt like outsiders in this group and I appeared to be the only individual that he could converse freely with. The Blades treated him with utter subservience, and other than Jauffre who spent his waking hours organising the thousands of threads of the Empire’s spy network there was no one else for him to simply have a conversation with. Viconia was the only other outsider in this group, but she seemed to prefer her own space unless it involved training with the other Blades in the use of her new sword and definitely wasn’t one for conversation.

 Martin and I would spend the evening hours wandering the parapets, or seated near the fire within the great hall and always constantly aware of the pair of fully armoured Blades that seemed to hover like shadows in our vicinity. After losing the Emperor and three other heirs to the throne they were not taking any chances even as their numbers gradually increased with every passing day.

 “Nothing seems to bother them much,” Martin commented to me as we walked the battlements one evening, casting a weary eye over his eternal protectors. “and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to it.”

 “A lot has changed in a few weeks.” I replied, feeling the breeze over what parts of my skin weren’t covered in armour and furs. “Just a month ago I was a deserter, doomed to a death by beating or being hung, and you were nothing more than a robed priest of Akatosh.”

 “Don’t remind me.” The level of melancholy seemed to grip him from time to time, not that I blamed him for it. Both of us were remarkably similar ages despite the uncertainty of exactly what year and month I was born and that too gave us both a sense of familiarity. “So much has happened since then, and it makes me wonder what is in store for both of us.”

 “ _Blood and fire._ ” I murmured as I remembered the Emperor’s words before his death but not quietly enough as the words made him nod sombrely.

 “That is for sure. There is no way that they can simply walk me down there,” he gestured to the far off gleam of lights of the Imperial City. “stick a crown on my head and that’ll be the end of it all. There is something darker at play here than simply trying to stir unrest in the Empire.”

 “Has Jauffre or the others found out anything more?”

 He shook his head. “Not much, and I’ve been doing my own reading into the matter.” I listened more intently to his words now, knowing that behind the soft spoken exterior there was an incredibly keen mind that absorbed all knowledge put in front of it. This, combined with the fact that the Fortress-monastery of the Blades had a library rivalling the Arcane University in breadth and sheer knowledge ensured that while I spent the day training in the art of the sword, Martin was devouring every scrap of knowledge available.

 “As far as any of us can tell, the coronation of the Emperor renews some ancient pact or ritual that involves the Amulet of Kings and the Dragonfires in the Temple of the One. Everything that I have ever known of magicka and daedra has always stated that what occurred to Kvatch was an impossibility. Portals of that scale and size and the conjuration of beasts from Oblivion for such periods of time has never occurred in all recorded history. I know that the destruction of the Septim line and the dimming of the Dragonfires has something to do with it.”

 “Something will come up.”

 “Indeed it will. Have you seen Jauffre?” There was a sense of awe in Martin’s voice as he thought of the Grandmaster of the Blades. “He has barely slept and eats at his desk but from there you can almost see the invisible ties binding him to the heart of the Empire. At his whim entire kingdoms could fall and it is almost terrifying watching the sheer power and control the Blades can exert on every corner of Tamriel.”

 He motioned to the far away lights and the darkened shadow of White Gold Tower. “The Elder Council may rule in the Emperor’s name and think they have power but it truly is the Emperor who rules all. Without the Blades however, that power is built on a foundation of sand.”

 “They are loyal though.”

 There was a dark humourless laugh. “Indeed they are. Not that I think I will ever get used to _the Blades_ saluting me and hailing me as Martin Septim to the end of my days.”

 Leaning against the stone embrasures he looked out over the darkened slopes and stared at the lights of Bruma. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I know I would be dead by now if it weren’t for you and Viconia. You both really do have my thanks.”

 My own smile was grim in the light but he didn’t seem to notice. “But everyone expects me to suddenly know what to do. How to behave. They want an Emperor to tell them what to do, and I don’t have the faintest idea…”

 “You’ll be fine.” I reassured him and he turned to stare at me with heavy eyes. “You will be. There’s a lot of strength in you. It took _balls_ to stand beside Viconia and me at the Priory. And from what I hear you were the only one who kept his head when the daedra started coming ove rhte wall of Kvatch. Without you and what you did a lot more people would be dead. You certainly didn’t waver in the face of Oblivion or a group of insane assassins, and so you won’t have a problem with this.”

 “How do you deal with it?”

 “The killing or the uncertainty?” I laughed.

 “Both.”

 It was my turn to become grim and I looked at him very seriously. “I have been trained since I joined the legion to fight and to kill. What happened at the Priory and Kvatch were far from the first times I found myself with my sword soaked in gore.”

 “Doesn’t that play on your mind though?”

 “I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t nights that I have awoken believing I was in some battle or expecting to find myself in Aetherius. That has been my role in life for almost longer than I can clearly remember. But that is what is expected of those who serve the Legion. We are not the calm soft-skinned beings of the cities and civilisation. We are the killers, the slayers and murderers who sole duty is to destroy those who threaten stability and peace no matter what form they take. Sure, in peace the legionaries may build roads and aqueducts, help repair homes after storms and earthquakes but there is no beating of swords into ploughs. When the whistle blows and formations are called we don our armour and draw swords without hesitation.”

 “I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you deserted.” Martin replied after a time.

 “That makes two of us.” I replied honesty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunchild is one of the Swords added by Oscoro's Oblivion Overhaul and is found within Nonungalo. In my original in-game journal Kaius retrieved the sword from those ruins just before traveling to Lake Arrius. When rewriting this I had soon discovered I was writing myself into a corner with the amount of weapons he was breaking or otherwise losing so I decided that as Kaius and Viconia become members of the Blades it would be reasonable if they were gifted with unique swords. When I used to play Oblivion back in 2010 Sunchild was one of the few weapons in the entire game that did not require repairs and this "Indestructibility" is a significant plot point throughout Bloodtide Rising. 
> 
> Dragonbane is straight from Skyrim. If Kaius has a unique sword then Viconia definitely deserves one of her own. ;)  
> (I also like imagining the ways how that sword managed to find itself in Sky Haven Temple 200 years after being wielded by Viconia...)


	7. The Imperial City

I spent most days training, sparring and learning from some of the greatest teachers and swordsmen in the Empire. The feel of Sunchild was unmatched and as Jauffre had promised the sword seemed nigh-indestructible, taking my poor-attempts of its use without the slightest blemish to show for it. For the time we remained in the fortress I felt my skill grow, and with it a newfound understanding of my new abilities and power. I could hit harder, strike more precisely and move quicker than I could have ever believed possible. This knowledge however made it even more infuriating when nearly every one of the Blades could outmatch me with technique and skill alone.

 The thirst however needed to be sated, and I found myself taking leave of the fortress under the guise of hunting. Every few days I would travel through the gates with bow in hand and practice moving through the wilds dressed in my new clothing and armour. Each time I would come back with a fresh kill, either the form of a mountain goat or deer, or some hardy breed of rabbit or quail that seemed to breed in abundance despite the seemingly desolate terrain. Most of the times I slaked my thirst on the animals I hunted, which assisted in keeping my equipment blood-stain free but only went a little way towards keeping the bloodlust at bay. Just over a week after arriving at Cloud Ruler I came across an unfortunate highwayman fleeing from his latest pickings on the road north to the border of Skyrim and the town of Riverwood. Before either of us had realised it he had fired his crossbow in desperation, seeing in me the armoured form of a bounty hunter or member of the highway guards and not wishing to be taken for punishment.

 Unfortunately for him however I turned out to be something far worse. Before I had realised what I had been doing I had stepped aside from the flickering crossbow bolt and had borne him down hard under my bodyweight, teeth sinking to the gums in his throat. A moment of struggle and a sudden crack of bone announced that yet again I had underestimated my new strength but it didn’t stop me from draining the broken-necked corpse dry and leaving me disgustingly sated.

 The Blades made us feel welcome, even Viconia despite her natural inclination to keep everyone at arm’s length. Between the physical and emotional distance she placed between herself and others she still partook in training with her own new sword and seemed to revel in the challenge of sparring some of the greatest fighters in the world. Even with her natural skill and ability she struggled against most of the instructors, but neither of us could hold a torch to Belisarius’ skill with a blade. He made it look ridiculously easy as he stepped and weaved and parried my attacks without the slightest undue effort, even when fully dressed in his distinctive splint mail.

 It was late in the afternoon, nearly a full fortnight since our arrival at Cloud Ruler and once again Belisarius was making a complete mockery of not only my skill with a blade but my unnatural vampiric speed and agility. Time and time again I would cut and slice out only to have him turn aside or flick his own blade against Sunchild, trading blows until I either found myself on my back or with the edge of his katana resting against my throat. This time however he swept me off my feet with a flickering movement while ducking under my strike. He used his momentum to not only knock me down but slice downwards with his magnificent katana. The strike would’ve cleaved my head from its shoulders if not for his perfect control, not once even drawing blood despite how close brought the razor edge to my skin.

 “You’re slowly getting better.” He said as he assisted in hauling me to my feet. “I thank Talos every day that you aren’t a legionary however.”

 “Why? Because I would be the one putting you on your arse?”

 He laughed, flicking his sword out away from his body in such a way as to remove blood and gore from its surface. Spinning it deftly in his hand he drew the blade across his body, guiding the blunt reverse edge in the web of the hand holding the top of the sheath. Then, in a single smooth motion he reversed the direction of the blade as the tip reached the sheath’s opening, locking it away with a click of metal. It was a single effortless move that he could’ve performed blind and deaf and belied the thousands of hours of practice that he had undertaken in the years of his life.

 “Hardly, but unlike those heavy footed bastards you can actually be taught some form of footwork that may save your life. Don’t get me wrong, the legions can and will annihilate anything they face in open battle but if you get the individual soldiers alone?” He shrugged. “It’s a slaughter.”

 I nodded soberly, the old stories of the disasters over the ages in places like Blackmarsh and Valenwood were told to every recruit as lessons to what happens when the shield wall and formations are broken. Several times in history the light moving Bosmer were able to overcome the cumbersome formations in their homeland with hit and run raids. And in Blackmarsh until the Legion changed tactics and equipment the tribes would simply wait until the legionaries would tire before attacking. Many hundreds of legionaries had lost their lives over the centuries from ill-equipped argonians kicking them into soft ground and marsh where they would drown in the armour or be finished with flashing blades.

 “In our line of work it is rare for us to fight together, and so we must rely on fancy footwork and agility before relying on a skin of steel. The legions can rely on their armour because that is what they do. They aren’t fancy Breton knights with their mounted cavalry charges, or orcish berserker rushing headlong into battle. They are the Empire’s mill-wheel of destruction that slowly crushes its foes into powder.”

 “And if the Blades came together to fight against an even number of legionaries?” I asked him aloud with the rhetorical question.

 “In formation the Blades would be slaughtered against a legion shieldwall. We’re good but the legion is designed for a straight up fight. You give us some manoeuvrability however and we’d make it costly at least.”

 Nearby Viconia was sparring against a pair of the younger Blades, their swords striking and blurring together in streaks of silver and ebony as she held her own against the two agents. It was an even match and Viconia seemed to be utterly enjoying herself with the challenge posed by her pair of adversaries.

 “And against the Drow?”

 Belisarius openly blanched at that. “I always thought we had the monopoly on skilled fighters in the world, but if they are all like your friend there, then I wouldn’t put a rusty septim against our chances in an even fight.”

 As we watched she managed to skilfully disarm one of her opponents, flicking his katana away with the gleaming edge of Dragonbane and knocking him to his back. The other Blade, stepping in to strike missed entirely as Viconia gracefully flipped off the ground with her free hand, ducking under the strike and sweeping the second Blade off her feet as well. All three stopped at the end of the practice and I could see Viconia’s hair flowing in the breeze as she fought bareheaded, panting with the exertion and sweating even in the cold mountain air.

 The numbers of Blades in the fortress had grown over the previous fortnight and now over fifty of them moved and training and ate within the heated halls. They slept, trained and rotated on sentry duty over the valleys below, ensuring that nothing and no one would approach unannounced. Messengers from below would come up almost several times a day, saddlebags brimming with messages and notes from agents scattered throughout the Empire for Jauffre’s eyes. The Grandmaster of the Blades easily knew more of what was occurring throughout the Empire than a dozen or more members of the Elder Council.

 What snippets of information we heard or were provided were troubling. In the wake of the murders of the Emperor and his heirs, unrest was increasingly building throughout the Empire. Plots, both imaginary and real were being investigated and fingers pointed in all directions at those deemed responsible. The destruction of an entire city at the claws and teeth of daedra certainly didn’t help the situation and soon accusing eyes were glancing in the direction of Summerset Isle and Red Mountain. Both the Altmer and the great houses of Morrowind were the racially obvious choices for intrigue and consorting with daedra but from what Jauffre had gleaned from the reports of hundreds of agents, both the Altmer and Dunmer were just as confused and concerned as the Empire was. Neither province wanted the full might of the Imperial Legion arrayed against them in retaliation for perceived crimes and as far as anyone could tell they too were actively seeking those responsible with almost undue haste.

 The list of suspects seemed to be dwindling rapidly but Jauffre’s mood in particular was souring as day after day. Hundreds of messages and notes from other Blades did little more than strike names from the list of those potentially responsible. As of yet there was no clue on who exactly was the guilty party. While the days lengthened and winter approached with no progress on finding the assassins the Empire slowly began to decay.

 The Elder Council was stagnated and wracked with indecision. Where they should’ve been choosing a leader to take over in the growing crisis they instead bickered and jostled for power and position amongst themselves. Individual counts, dukes, kings and rulers politicked and quarrelled, spent favours like septims and backstabbed each other figuratively and in at least one case literally. No one was rising to claim the throne or even take proper stewardship of it due to the fact that nearly everyone else on the council was reaching for the same goal with their hands so firmly planted on the rungs of power their feet were free to kick at those below. The only individual who seemed to be above the petty power mongering was High Councillor Ocato who’s pleas for a unified Empire was consistently being shouted down by the others.

 And everywhere the cracks were forming. Blackmarsh, ever fractious and brought into the empire with treaty and diplomacy was already looking to secede. Now that the firm rule of the Emperor was no longer holding them back against the depravations of Dunmer Slavers of House Dres the beginning of a militia or resistance was beginning to take shape. The Dunmer themselves were already squabbling despite Lord Vivec’s attempts to control the unruly houses. The wounds of the Nerevarine’s return and the fall of Dagoth Ur was still fresh in the minds with only a few years passing since the fall of the sixth house. In faraway places like Highrock, the Orcish Strongholds were already finding themselves in renewed fighting and raids against the encroachment of the Bretons.

 The threads were unravelling and what was worse, the armoured might of the Legions remained behind the stone walls of their fortresses and did nothing. Some even going as far as reducing the number of patrols throughout the countryside. Without the authority of the Emperor or someone nominated to lead in his stead the Legions sat idle and no one, not even local governors and members of the Council could order the Legions to quell the growing discontent. Banditry and animal attacks were already on the rise in just a few weeks of idleness. The mightiest military that had ever existed in the history of Tamriel seemed fated to slowly rot and rust away behind walls while the Empire fell apart around them.

 So I found myself becoming increasingly interested in training and learning my new skills and abilities just that little bit more with every passing day. Under the tutelage of the Blades I knew I was growing even more lethal with a sword until I could my own against some of the best within the Empire. It was at the point where Belisarius and I began to spar again that one of the newest recruits to the order came hurriedly from the interior of the Great Hall and approached the training square.

 “Viconia, Kaius. The Grandmaster requests your presence.”

 I narrowly parried a strike from Belisarius’ blade centimetres from my throat and he nodded in the recruit’s direction. “Best you don’t keep the old man waiting.” He said simply, sheathing his sword in the same liquid movement that I doubted I could ever match.

 Viconia disentangled herself from her own practice session, leaving her sparring partners to continue on against each other and making our way up the short steps towards the oaken doorway. We had spent little time together since our arrival but there was still that strange layer of familiarity between us from the few weeks as travelling companions.

 We entered the hall and made our way quickly through the carved hallways to the officers’ quarters and where Jauffre made his study. The pile of messages and written sheets of parchment were strewn across the desk that he was habitually seated behind. Every so often one of the recruits would be seen with armfuls as they went to dispose of the irrelevant in the fireplace. From this simply decorated room Jauffre commanded the entire espionage network of the Empire, the sprawling spiders web of information that began with his quill and inkpot and lead to the handful of spymasters in each province. Each spymaster commanded a small force of Blades and each Blade would have their own tiny network of informants, spies and snitches in every walk of life and at every level of power. As I looked at the old, weary looking Grandmaster I doubted that there wasn’t a single spoken or written word throughout the Empire that didn’t find itself reported to a member of the order. From the lowest beggar to the mightiest Lord there was nothing that happened in Tamriel without finding itself on a report to one of the Emperor’s soldier-spies.

 He looked up as we entered, the muffled sound of our armour barely echoing in carved stone rooms. It looked as though he had barely slept since our rapid journey from the priory but his mind was no less sharp for that.

 “Ah. Grab a seat you two.” He motioned to the several seats that were placed seemingly at random throughout his office. A barely slept in bed lay pressed to the far wall but other than it, the desk and the chairs there was nothing in the room other than piles of written parchment. “I have news regarding our mutual enemies.”

 Our attention was immediately gained and we took up seats facing him. Wordlessly Martin appeared in the doorway and took up a seat as well against the wall, a pair of books that he had obviously been studying in his hands.

 “We have finally managed to track those responsible not only for the death of the Emperor and his sons, but also for the attack on the Priory and the destruction of Kvatch.”

 Seeing that he had both our undivided attentions he continued, shuffling a few of the sheets out of the way and leaning back in his chair. “They call themselves the Mythic Dawn and they are a cult who worships Mehrunes Dagon.”

 “Mehrunes Dagon?” Viconia asked, and we all realised that she was unfamiliar of the gods and demons of the surface world.

 “The Daedric Prince of destruction, bloodshed and betrayal. You both have been to his realm when you closed that portal and as far as what we can tell these cultists are seeking to turn all of Mundus into the same. So you better than anyone understands what fate lays in store for us if they manage to succeed.”

 I swore under my breath. “But how in Oblivion’s name do they hope to achieve something like that?”

 Martin spoke up this time, looking almost as tired as Jauffre and I realised that he had been working just as hard as the aged spy. “By killing the Emperor and stopping the Dragonfires burning for the first time in history.”

 “That sounds absurdly simple.”

 There was a sigh from Martin and he rubbed his eyes. “Unfortunately in theory it is. In practice though you would have to kill the entire line of the Emperors and ensure that a coronation couldn’t take place to relight the Dragonfires. With the loss of the Amulet of Kings there is no way that the ritual could work, even if myself or some other suitable leader could be found.”

 “The Amulet of Kings,” He continued. “is old. Exceedingly old. Saint Alessia was granted it by Akatosh who, as the legends and stories go placed a piece of his soul and bound it together with hers to forge the central stone. Since then the blood and soul of every reigning Emperor is apparently bound in the Amulet and strengthens not only the covenant between men and Akatosh, but also strengthens the barriers between our world and the realm of Oblivion.”

 “So this bond is now broken with no way to renew it unless we can find the Amulet.”

 “Exactly. On top of that it is the only thing at this time that could stop the Empire from fracturing apart and war breaking out. Only those of Septim Blood or suitable to rule can wear the Amulet and as such only someone wearing the Amulet will be able to be unanimously recognised by the Elder Council. That we believe is the only way to stop their squabbling long enough to stop wars between the provinces.”

 “So how does this assist in these daedra worshippers in bringing about the end of the world?” Viconia’s interest was flashing behind her eyes now and I felt uncomfortable with the way she seemed entranced at the darker side of magicka.

 “The barriers are already weakening, gradually decaying from the level they have been reinforced to over the past millennia. Oblivion Portals such as the ones that destroyed Kvatch have been known to be possible, but never for anything longer than a few minutes at most. With the barrier decaying conjurers are going to be able to summon creatures for longer, and soon even the most ill-prepared mage is going to be able to conjure the worst Oblivion has to offer without the slightest effort. Kvatch is going to be the beginning and little more than an introduction to the horrors that await us.”

 I violently spat a curse and Jauffre nodded with agreement.

 “How long are we looking at before all hell literally breaks loose?”

 Jauffre and Martin shared a glance that did nothing to sate the growing fear in my belly. “About eighteen months. Two years at the very most.” Martin eventually replied. “Once the barriers are broken, the creatures of Oblivion will flood into this world and Mundus will simply become part of that accursed realm.”

 “So we find the Amulet, get you to the Temple of the One and relight the Dragonfires to save the world?”

 “You make it sound overly simple but yes, that’s the general plan.”

 Viconia and I shared a look and I could see the burning hunger of the awaiting challenge in her gaze. “Where do we come into all this? We’re not spies and I’ve never been good at unravelling mysteries.”

 “Lucky for you, you don’t have to worry about investigating these cultists. The entire might of the Blades is currently searching for them wherever they may try to hide and thankfully we have been given our best lead in the Imperial City. Young Baurus; the survivor of the Emperor’s bodyguards has managed to unearth a cell of them operating within the City and has requested help in dealing with them as well as tracking down their primary base of operations.”

 “And you need us to help him find them?”

 Jauffre’s head shook. “I’m not sending you there to investigate… I’m sending you to exterminate. Normally I would rely on the Imperial Watch or the Legion for these sort of activities but without the support of the Elder Council my authority is hindered. There are too few of us to spare in this initial phase but once you have burned out the cult within the Imperial City I will be able to send a handful of Blades to assist you in dealing with their main lair.”

 Over the next few hours the four of us plotted and discussed what was to come. Viconia and I were to travel to the Imperial City and meet Baurus within a Boarding House in the Elven Gardens District. One of the many hundreds of safe houses scattered throughout the Empire it was here that Baurus had been living and working from since the Emperor’s death. To be able to track down a handful of individuals in the largest city in the world was true testament to not just his dedication but his skill. Now with promising leads he needed assistance in tracking down and burning the cult out with force and Viconia and I were the only ones available to do so on such short notice. We sat within Jauffre’s study for a time, before retiring to make our arrangements for the short journey in the morning. Even on foot it was a short travel south to the city but as time was of the essence and despite my misgivings and desire not to find myself in the saddle again we would travel by horse.

 As the journey was short we didn’t take much, leaving with little more than our armour, weapons and clothes and carrying very little food and water. Jauffre had provided us with a fairly substantial amount of septims to pay for lodging and supplies while within the city for however long that it might take. Once we had assisted Baurus and hopefully located the whereabouts of either the cult’s primary home or the Amulet of Kings we were to relay the location back to Cloud Ruler Temple. Upon receiving word of our success Jauffre would send a larger team of Blades to assist us in destroying the cult and retrieving the Amulet.

 The plan was simple but simple plans always seemed to work better and had higher chances of success. Once morning broke over the horizon Viconia and I said our farewells and began the trek to the south. Neither of us were impressed with riding again, our bodies remembering all too well the agony of the journey through the darkness after the destruction of the Priory. We rode steadily, making good time and even managing to stay in an inn in the town of Bleakers Way for the evening. It was a surprisingly pleasant journey in comparison to the previous weeks of endless walking through forests, hills and plains and after such an introduction to travelling by horse the gentle canter that we managed turned a three-day journey into an overnight one.

 As the waters of Lake Rumare drew closer so did the towering, sprawling majesty of the Imperial City. Gleaming walls of white stone and marble rose spectacularly into the sky and I watched with a grin at Viconia’s open expression of astonishment as we boarded one of the many barges to cross the calm waters of the lake. Our horses were left with one of stables that dotted the waters edge, their stone walls sturdy and well-built despite appearing positively crude in comparison to the Ayleid-made city on the island. A quick haggle with the bargemen, answering the questions from the usual assortment of tariffs and customs officials ensuring that no good went untaxed soon ensured that we were on board the boat and making our way to the City itself.

 The Imperial City was unlike anything to be found in all of Tamriel, and judging from Viconia’s expression; in the Underdark as well. A curtain wall six kilometres in diameter and thirty metres tall, formed a perfect circle that carved out a section in the island it was built into. However as we drew closer to the northern bank of the island our eyes were drawn upwards at the enormous spear of white marble and stone that pierced the heavens. White Gold Tower, made by the hands of the long dead Ayleids towered above everything and could been seen for hundreds of kilometres in all directions. Hundreds of metres tall and a hundred wide at the base it was figuratively and literally the heart of the Cyrodiilic Empire. Within the spire lay the theatre and the hundreds of seats where the Elder Council met, the Imperial Palace in which every Emperor and his family had lived and the temple of the Moth Priests and their enormous collection of priceless Elder Scrolls. There was more concentrated power within those stones than could be found anywhere else in the Empire and as such attracted countless thousands like moths to a candle.

 Cities such as Anvil and Leyawiin could lay claim to being the largest cities in Cyrodiil and even the wider empire with over a 120,000 souls living in and around their walls. Far away Daggerfall too had claim to a massive population of an estimated 110,000 but they were nothing to the incomprehensible numbers on City Isle. Over a million men, mer and beastfolk made the Imperial City and the rest of the Island their home, their numbers spilling out from the neat circular districts and their architecturally pleasing designs. Houses, apartments, workshops, warehouses, huts and shanty’s crowded over every inch of land and even out onto the water. They jostled against each other, leaning and growing, rising multiple stories into the air in vain attempts to match the sheer scale of the ancient Ayleid structures countless generations of men had claimed within. Made of brick, stones, wood and plaster the buildings outside created a distinct opposite impression of the perfect organisation of the structures inside, growing and shifting like mould as streets and blocks shifted and moved over the centuries.

 Only the most affluent and well-off could live within the city walls for any period of time. The wealthy could afford to rent apartments within the Elven Gardens or Talos Plaza Districts but only the most exceedingly rich could ever possibly hope to own anything more within the walls. Even inheritance was no guarantee of being able to own even the smallest of buildings, houses or apartments, where the shifting price of the tiniest piece of property ensured that Counts and members of the Elder Council had to take deep looks into their purses in contemplation before making purchases.

 But the Imperial City was the heart of the Empire, the city where-all-roads-led. The sprawling multitudes and the secured trade routes both by land and sea by the might of the Legion and Imperial Navy ensured that goods from throughout Tamriel could be found within its bustling marketplaces. Arms and armour from orcish smiths sat alongside silks from the depths of Blackmarsh, spices from Elsweyr, furs from Skyrim and alchemical ingredients from Valenwood. Ebony hewn from the heart of Vvardenfell was fashioned by expert smiths into the greatest of crafts, and silver and gold from Highrock was combined with gems and precious stones from the Summerset Isles before being paraded by the wealthy and powerful of the city. Anything could be found at a price in such a place, but as with all great collections of power and money those who coveted it with hungry eyes could also be found.

 Outside of the walls, the powerful and wealthy held little sway as the thousands who called the city their home were born, raised, matured, had families, grew old and died. Many would live their entire lives in the shadow of White Gold Tower, never leaving the Isle and the bustling throngs that swarmed over it. Within such a place and despite the constant vigil and actions of the Imperial Watch crime was rampant and every nook and cranny was home to the penniless, destitute and desperate. In darkened corners cutthroats and cutpurses plied their trades and smugglers and thieves made use of the millennia old sewers and tunnels that ate their way into the rock beneath the flagstones. Gangs would prowl the streets in various shades of legitimacy and legality. Some were little more than animals that the Watch put down without hesitation and others, while not the most honest of groups still seemed to have more honour than those seated in the Elder Council. Daedra worshippers, slavers, pilgrims, freemen, guildsmen, citizens and numerous others lived within the closely-packed streets and houses, going about their lives as they ate, slept, made love, celebrated, raised families and died in various ways. Most would possibly never travel further than the City Isle itself and would undoubtedly be cremated or laid to rest within a few hundred metres of their birthplace.

 It was this world within a world that Viconia and I soon found ourselves in, the press of bodies heavy around us as we moved in our full armour and feeling uneasy with the sudden press of the crowds after so long within the wilds of Cyrodiil. Viconia was full of wonder at such a place even as she recoiled from the mass of people and the sheer bustling, overwhelming nature of it. The sights, smells, and sounds overlapped and were mixed together until barely any semblance of order remained. Even despite our appearances; Viconia’s beauty, ebony skin and white hair, and my own tall, armoured and scarred visage barely even warranted a glance from the population of the City. Those teeming thousands were so used to the multitudes from throughout the bounds of the Empire that we were able to effortlessly disappear in plain sight.

 We threaded our way through the streets and through the enormous gatehouse on the North Eastern side where the pristine path lead from the Imperial Prison to the central ring around the base of White Gold Tower. The four gates located around the walls were heavily crowded by buildings built up over the centuries but their major thoroughfares were kept open to ensure that the flow of traffic and people never slowed. Each gate served as entrance and route to the major points on the isle; the North Eastern gate lead to the Imperial Prison and the Headquarters of the Legion, the South East to the Arcane University and the home of the Mages Guild. The South West led to the enormous city docks where dozens of ships ranging from enormous barges and caravels built for lengthy journeys at sea moored alongside smaller galleys and cogs for the river trade. The three smaller gates however were utterly insignificant in scale to the Western gate, where its mouth opened directly onto the ancient bridge connecting the City to the Mainland and the town of Weye on the Western Shore. An almost impossible feat of engineering, the ancient stone bridge was over two kilometres in length and wide enough that an entire legion could march across in columns of fifty men abreast.

 While the docks brought in trade from throughout the Empire, the Bridge brought uncountable tonnes of food and supplies from the counties of Cyrodiil, each bag and wagon ensuring that famine and starvation was only barely held at bay for the city. It took almost the entire harvests of counties Cheydinhal, Bravil, Kvatch and Anvil just to keep the populace fed enough to stop starvation and death, and food convoys would travel from as far away as Hammerfell and northern Elsweyr to feed the city of thousands. Such a titanic undertaking not only seemed possible but happened with such prodigious ease and regularity that a mass starvation or famine hadn’t occurred on the Isle for over 600 years.

 It was in this place of teeming numbers and appearance of a humanoid anthill that Viconia and I had come to find and kill a tiny nest of a dozen or more. Such a task should have been impossible but simply served to show the incredible skill and ability of the Empire’s spies.

 Our destination was a seemingly innocuous affair in a city of wonders. While fastidiously maintained by a _literal_ army of street sweepers and cleaners there was no hiding the fact that this particular series of streets within the Elven Gardens district were rougher than most. It was the little details of weather beaten signs hanging in the breeze, the taste of soot from cooking fires and hearths and the sudden sensation and appearance of a layer of grime coating every wall and surface from uncountable years of habitation. The crowds appeared to be rougher than the usual passers-by threading their way through the Temple or Arena districts with their gardens, temples to the Nine and collections of theatres, upper class taverns and bathhouses. Instead there were other hard-bitten adventurers, sell swords, mercenaries, tradesmen, labourers and those who relied on such individuals for their own trades. Bawdyhouses, low-rate bathhouses, taverns, inns and other various houses of ill repute could be found at every turn of the head, as well as bunkhouses, boarding houses and comparatively cheaper apartments compared to the rest of the city. Almost every bodily desire was catered for, and the further one delved into the back alleys and darkened corridors the more and more hedonistic of desires could be sated.

 It was here that we found the Boarding house run by an associate of the Blades and that possibly provided the only safe house for the members of the order in the entire city. Solidly built and smelling of unwashed bodies and stale alcohol there was little to recommend to the place. However, in an area frequented by the more roughest of individuals Viconia and I were able to travel and move freely and without suspicion. Our own appearances were perfectly suited for such a place and even as we pushed our way inside no one but the owner standing behind the bar bothered to even look up at us for more than a second.

 Until the early hours of the evening we waited within the dining room of the boarding house, having arranged for individual rooms and resting comfortably. The advice from Jauffre was to arrive, make ourselves known and simply wait for Baurus to show himself before rendering whatever assistance we could. Luther Broad was a well-built slab of muscle that was slowly wasting into fat from the years of running the boarding house. Thick wrestler’s arms, trunks of legs and a bullish neck despite the balding head ringed with grey hair ensured that rarely anyone caused issues within his business. If they did they soon found themselves vacating the premises and only if they were lucky he’d open the door first before throwing them out into the street.

 We settled in and made ourselves at home, shedding most of our equipment in our rooms and remaining in the dining area near the lit hearth that left the room somewhat stuffy from the temperature. From the chill of the southern Jerals it was a pleasant experience despite how I kept myself armoured while I sat at the bar, sipping Colovian Brandy and wishing for a mug of Vvardenfell Matze. While staying for any period of time within a city I rarely drank water, and despite the unique and efficient plumbing and aqueducts of the Imperial City I wasn’t going to take my chances drinking anything that wasn’t alcohol or boiled repeatedly.

 Viconia found herself drawn into one of the various games being played through the room. The Boarding house seemed to be a popular place for the working classes of the City, and a glance around the room showed over two dozen individuals from a variety of trades and professions. Masons, carpenters, smiths, guildsmen, caravan hands, sellswords, tailors, street sweepers, daytalers, jewellers all mixed and intermingled to some degree despite the various races and genders. While overwhelmingly Imperial, there were Dunmer, Altmer, Bosmer, Bretons and Nords and almost surprisingly a handful of Orcs, Argonians and Khajiit seated at the tables or standing near the bar. Some played dice, which seemed to fascinate Viconia especially when she realised that she was good at it. Some sat at the bar and stared into the mugs and a very small group was near the back wall, tossing daggers into a wooden board hung haphazardly and showing clear signs of a being a popular target. Such a place seemed almost like home to me, especially how except for the bearing of those around me and the lack of uniforms it could’ve passed for a Legion bar.

 As the evening approached the numbers inside seemed to grow and more and more men and women of all races began to finish their shifts or duties of the day and slink into their favourite watering holes. Meals began to be served as the fifth hour tolled across the city from the dozens of chapels and churches across the isle but not for a moment did the City grow quiet. Every hour of every single day life continued. Temples filled for sermons, theatres filled with patrons and held shows, and bloodthirsty roars echoed from the Area District as fights, tournaments, jousts and duels were played out, sometimes resulting with the death of one or more involved. Taverns continued their trade of all hours of the evening and as night fell the darker aspects of entertainment came out to ply their trades. Women of the night, catamites, escorts and dealers of skooma and other narcotics would appear in the gathering shadows and no matter how much effort the Watch went to they would never be able to remove all such individuals and groups.

 My thoughts were broken by the portly form of Luther sliding a pair of copper pieces across the surface of the bar with a meaty hand.

 “Ere’s your change.” He growled, staring at me for just long enough that I was forced to look at him for a moment.

 For the second that our eyes met he frowned and darted his eyes in the direction of the door and not for a second did a single muscle move or his expression change. I hadn’t ordered or paid for a drink in over an hour and knew a message when I saw it, turning my head slightly and looking across to the entrance and seeing the handful of individuals making their way in for the night.

 There was nothing about any of them that were of the slightest interest, each no different from the two dozen others that were already frequenting the dining hall and the rest of the boarding house. Mumbling some half-hearted form of response, I dragged the pair of coins over to myself, pocketing them in one of the few pouches that I still had attached to my belt and looking over the new arrivals for any traces of familiarity.

 For a second my eyes alighted on the young looking Redguard, skin a dark bronze and looking no different from the dozens of other labourers that filled the city. In a second I recognised him even despite the fact that the last time I had seen him was fully dressed in his Akaviri splint mail armour and drenched in the blood of the Emperor’s assassins. Baurus looked far younger than I thought and as he made his way through the crowded dining room there was no hint of the man that was one of the few chosen to defend the Emperor.

 Seemingly at random he seated himself at the bar, dragging up a stool beside me and motioning to Luther and one of the various alcoholic drinks arrayed in casks and barrels along the wall. A handful of coins appeared, and vanished into Luther’s hand before a flagon slid in front of him as though conjured.

 Baurus nodded his thanks, taking a mouthful of the potent mixture frothing in his cup and seemed to talk without even moving his lips.

 “I’m going to get up in a minute and walk out the back.” He said, his voice travelling no further than my ears as he simply seemed to go about relaxing at the bar. “That guy in the corner wearing the brown shirt and leather boots who came in after I did will follow me. I want you to follow him…”

 I swung around on my stool, looking about the room quickly and picking out the man that Baurus had spoken of. The short, grey haired Breton seemed to be intently staring at Baurus with a nervous energy that his attempts to appear relaxed did little to dissipate. To any of those in the room it appeared as though I had simply turned to see where Viconia was and upon gaining her attention motioned to my drink with a silent query of whether she wanted something herself. For a second she looked confused, head tilting slightly, eyes glancing at Baurus at my side before her yellow eyes widened at the realisation. She caught on quickly, shrugging and waving off the question in favour of continuing her dice game against the others surrounding the table where a small pile of gold and silver coins continued to grow on her side.

 Turning back around I raised my own flagon and drained a sizable amount of the remainder, before making a show of wiping my chin clear of dregs on the back of my gloved hand. “Ready when you are.” I breathed, placing the mostly empty flagon back on the bar.

 Baurus’ voice was a whisper that no one other than me could hear in the room. I still couldn’t see any hint of his lips moving. “Good. Wait for him to follow me. I want to see what he’ll do.”

 He knocked back the rest of his own drink in a single, well-practiced motion, sliding the flagon and its foamy remnants across the bar and standing with all the appearance of needing to relieve himself. There was no trace of the man that I had seen in the catacombs and nothing that revealed that the young Redguard moving away from the bar was a highly trained swordsman and spy. He moved almost clumsily, tripping slightly on a raised stone in the floor before disappearing through a door leading to the Boarding House’s basement.

 The Breton moved with almost a comical haste, rising as soon as Baurus had dropped out of sight and almost elbowing his way through the press in the room between him and the door. I watched from the corner of my eye as he moved, waiting for him to walk behind me before pushing my mostly empty flagon across the bar and catching a knowing look in Luther’s eye as I did so.

 Viconia too watched our disappearance with hooded eyes, staying at her seat after I gestured to her to wait where she was. I somehow knew that if things got out of hand that she would have my back and in a place where a barroom brawl was almost guaranteed I knew that I could rely on her. Quickly but carefully I made my way to the door they had disappeared through, glancing about to see if anyone had noticed the strange goings-on before slipping through into the darkness of a stairwell.

 The smell of musty damp and leaking casks and barrels of alcohol immediately hit me as soon as I crossed the threshold, the several short flights of stairs lit at every corner by a closed oil lantern where they angled away to the left. The cellar of the Boarding house was where the numerous reserves of food and alcohol were kept and where the drainage and pipes from the upper levels connected together as they fed into the sewers and tunnels beneath the city. It was cold and dark and I immediately found myself sensing trouble.

 It was less than a dozen metres long but much wider, filled with rows and rows of bottle racks, stacked wine casks, and barrels of salted meats, beers, meads and other various varieties of alcohol. Of Baurus there was no sign, he somehow managing to disappear into the room with greater effectiveness than with a spell of invisibility and this was a fact that the suddenly very anxious Breton was uncomfortably aware of.

 I made no sound as I stepped down from the last step and onto the cellar’s stone floor despite wearing more than thirty kilograms of armour and chainmail. My vampiric nature and the fortnight of practice moving and sneaking in my equipment at Cloud Ruler allowed me to almost materialise within the room behind the frantic Breton spy. His head snapped back to face me with an all-too-guilty expression, giving me the uncomfortable image of a deer facing down an onrushing wolf and staring at me in utter shock.

 His mouth hung open for a second, realising that he was not only found out but trapped in the cellar with my armoured form between him and escape. For a moment he almost appeared to consider running or attempting to make it past me before his panic truly set in and he began to whisper short sharp syllables that felt like daggers being dragged across my flesh.

 Exploding into action at the first sounds I rushed forward the few short paces between us as his daedric armour began to materialise around him with every crawling word. For a second he almost appeared to look triumphant as the familiar snarling mask consumed his face with its otherworldly appearance and an obsidian bladed dagger began to form in his hand. As he choked out the last of the conjuring spell my plated boot lashed out into his chest with a crack of broken ribs and a shattered sternum. He flopped onto his back, spreadeagled and his incantation being brutally cut away mid-breath by shards of bone piercing his lungs. Trying desperately one more time to summon his daedric arms and armour or something even worse he tried to force the words from his throat, concentrating on the magicka even as I caved in his face with my heel.

 With his nose jammed through his brain the spell failed, armour fading and dissolving away like all those others Viconia and I had faced. The bloody and ruined form of the would-be assassin was left looking extremely mortal and frail in death.

 Baurus appeared from between a pair of shelves containing rows of wine bottles, looking over my handiwork with some distaste at the way I had taken care of his would-be assassin. “Overkill is not something you believe in, is it?” he remarked as he saw the ruin of the man’s features.

 “I’m fairly certain that if they’re dead, they can’t complain about it.” I replied bitterly. “Besides, I’m not one for playing fair with daedra worshippers.”

 “That you are not.” He strode over to me and shook my hand with gratitude. “I am glad to see you but you seem to have a knack of catching me at a bad time.”

 “Nothing I can do about that.”

 “I know, but you can help me do something about this.” He motioned to the fresh corpse even as he knelt over it and began patting down pockets and sleeves. “I don’t think Luther will appreciate having to clean this up.”

 Motioning to the far end of the cellar he began dragging the body by the armpits. “There’s a grate down there that drops down into the sewers. Luther uses it to dispose of any meat that’s gone bad so it’s perfect for getting rid of this fellow.”

 Between the two of us we managed to manhandle the corpse and stuff it down the chute into the darkness beneath the city. Rats and other creatures that I didn’t particularly want to think about would not take long in disposing of the body and there would be little evidence of the man’s fate. Even if the corpse was found in the bowels of the Imperial city, it wouldn’t be the only one down there and especially wouldn’t be the first murder of the day.

 Together Baurus and I returned back to the dining hall and Luther noticed the distinct way how three men had gone into the basement and only two had returned. He didn’t even spare a sideways glance at the two of us and provided even less of one as I nodded once to Viconia and waited for her to finish the current round of dice she was playing. Standing, and collecting her winnings she made her way across the crowded room with several more pouches of coins than what she had started with. Together the two of us followed Baurus up the stairs to the sleeping quarters and the 2nd floor where some of the longer term resident’s apartments were located. Typically, while the higher floors had better views and ventilation, most of the longer term residents lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors rather than the 4th to 6th due to the increased risk of dying if a fire broke out. Fires may have been uncommon in the Imperial City but were still a considerable risk and never far from everyone’s minds.

 Without a word he motioned us inside his room, locking the door behind us and moving over to one of the several sturdy appearing cupboards built along and against the walls. Each were large enough to hide in comfortably and it didn’t surprise me when he opened one, shifted some clothing aside and pushed the false panel away before stepping through.

 Carefully hidden and completely unnoticeable on the floor that it was situated a secret room had been built in the decades or centuries past. It was hidden in one of the many crawlspaces that allowed the collections of plumbing, pipework and ventilation to snake through between rooms in most Ayleid constructions. Within this space were several stacks of chests built into the walls, racks of armour, clothes, containers containing official papers and all manner of items and equipment required for the Empires spy network to operate clandestinely. If the time came however for stealth and secrecy to be put aside, the several suits of recognisable splint mail and rows of katana’s were available to outfit over a dozen blades in their full panoply of warfare.

 Closing the cupboard doors and the false panel behind us I felt the tingle of magicka as the enchantments sealing the room ensured that any sound, spoken or otherwise would go no further than its confines. It was a consistent hum in the back of my mind that was felt as though preceding a headache but I knew that for the moment at least we could speak freely.

 “Now that we have some privacy I guess it’s about time that I let you know exactly what is going on.” he said, after introducing himself to Viconia. “This evening’s event has unfortunately pushed things over a precipice somewhat and we are now running out of time.”

 He motioned for us to take seats in the tiny room, Viconia lifted herself up onto a chest mounted to the wall and somehow managing to appear completely at ease but quivering with a dangerous energy at the same time. I leant against the wall next to a suit of Avakiri armour and waited for Baurus to seat at the desk in the room and begin explaining the situation.

 “As Jauffre has certainly told you, the Assassins who killed the Emperor and his sons were part of a daedric cult known as the Mythic Dawn. I’ve been tracking their agents in the City, but they have obviously noticed. The Imperial City so far appears to be their primary recruiting location but the members of this cult come from across Tamriel.”

 “Jauffre said that they were good at covering their tracks.”

 Nodding sombrely, he clenched his fist and began rapping his knuckles against the wood of the desk. “They are. Too damn good. Unlike most cults they don’t start as a little club banding together in the sewers or meeting for book readings or twisting sermons to suit their own interpretations. They are a lot more esoteric and far more difficult to track down as a result.”

 Viconia’s eyes shone in the darkness, glints of malice and strangely familiar with such situations. “How do they recruit members?”

 “With these.” With a heavy thump he pulled a trio of books out from a drawer and lightly dropped them on the desk. “These are the _Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes_ , written by the leader of the cult; Mankar Camoran.”

 “I don’t understand.” Viconia said, running her fingers lightly over the surface of one of the books and feeling the vellum as she lightly flicked through the pages.

 “There are four of these books, together they apparently show the way to the home of the Cult, but it is extremely difficult to get all four. Books one and two are easy, and as far as any of our investigations have found there are copies in nearly every bookstore and market across the entirety of the Empire. Book three is more difficult and while there are easily _thousands_ of the others scattered to the four winds, there are possibly only a couple of hundred of book three to be found. This is the 2 nd copy I have managed to find in the entire city and I had to bribe the owner of _First Edition_ just to get my hands on it.”

 “And book four?” I asked, picking one of the books up and briefly leafing through the pages and trying to discern what appeared to be the words of a madman scrawled throughout it.

 “Book four can only be given by a member of the Cult, and only after you manage to find the location by translating and discerning it from the first three. An associate of mine in the Arcane University is an expert in daedric cults and has my other copy of the third book. Tar-Meena may be an argonian but she’s got a smart head on her shoulders and knows more about daedra and their worshippers than we do about breathing. Only those who have all four books can utilise them to find the hidden path and therefore prove themselves worthy to join the ranks of the cult.”

 “So if we get our hands on the fourth book, we can find out where their home is and then Viconia, myself and a group of Blades can go and destroy them?”

 “Exactly, but hopefully retrieving the Amulet of Kings in the process. Without it all we’ve done is buy ourselves time before the end.”

 “Are they really attempting to destroy the world?” Viconia was reading through one of the books with a combined look of interest and annoyance at trying to understand the jumbled ramblings written within it.

 “In a way. They are trying to merge Oblivion with Mundus and allow Mehrunes Dagon to rule over whatever remains. Needless to say that no one will survive in any measurable capacity once this occurs. While it’s easy to dismiss all this as ramblings of the insane and of the usual run-of-the-mill daedra worshippers out of their minds, the Mythic Dawn is easily the most dangerous group of individuals in thousands of years.”

 He looked over the books again and motioned with a weary sigh. “The level of planning to undertake something like this is staggering and I doubt any group other than the Blades or even the Legion has the manpower or resources to pull this off. To supply every bookstore and market stall in the Empire with these copies, seeding them in such a way that the interested take it upon themselves to track down and eventually join the cult means that they have been doing this for decades. To create so many books means some form of printing operation or even series of printing presses, which then represents the fact that they were able to gather and stockpile the materials required like ink, parchment, vellum etc. There is quite possibly thousands of cultists throughout every province, a dozen or more in every city and so far they all have waited until now to strike. I’m not an expert chess player but I know that you don’t start to move your pieces until you are ready and have a damn good chance at winning.”

 Pausing for a moment he rubbed his eyes. “Right now they have us at check, and I think only because you two have gotten involved that they didn’t checkmate us.”

 “This Mankar Camoran sounds like a lunatic.” Viconia muttered, still reading through the pages of one of the books.

 “Oh he undoubtedly is, but it seems as though his madness has pushed through the barriers between it and genius. These books are his take and thoughts and translations of the _Mysterium Xarxes_. The _Xarxes_ is a book written by Mehrunes Dagon himself and is one of the few Daedric Artefacts within the world. The power in that single book alone is unfathomable and both I and the rest of the Blades are certain that Camoran has it in his possession. This shows that he has significant favour with the Prince of Destruction that alone is enough cause to worry without the fact he has a literal army of crazies at his beck and call. They are willing to destroy entire cities to kill a single man, attack hidden locations of the Blades and sacrifice themselves if called on to do so. They are numerous, fanatical and have been preparing for all this for a very, very long time.”

 I looked at him seriously and found myself unconsciously running my fingers up Sunchild’s hilt. “What do you need us to do?”

 A grin flickered over his face as he looked over to me. “I had planned on going to a meeting with “The Sponsor” and taking the place of one of the potential inductees after you arrived, but being followed by one of their members wasn’t part of the plan and has brought forward the schedule. We can’t afford to wait for a more opportune time otherwise they will begin to miss our late friend and most likely go to ground. I need you two to come with me to this meeting and watch my back. We need to get the fourth book no matter what and as I can’t go to the meeting armed without drawing suspicion so I’ll need you two to keep me alive.”

 I glanced at Viconia and saw her shrug before she closed her book with a snap. “Sounds easy enough I suppose.”

 Baurus seemed to have a physical weight lift from his shoulders. “Thank you both. I know this is all rushed but time is of the essence. The bad news is that the meeting place is in the sewers beneath the city. The good news is that I’ve managed to scout out most of the area and know it well enough that between the three of us this will work.”

 “When do we leave?”

 His grin was savage, constricting itself into a familiar expression that I recognised from when he fought the assassins who killed the Emperor. “Right now.”


	8. On the Path of Dawn

 

 Carefully lifting up a hatch in the floor Baurus revealed a tiny passage leading into the lower levels. With barely a nod he clambered down, grasping the iron rungs firmly and shimmying his way down the gap.  Viconia and I followed shortly after, lowering ourselves with slightly more difficulty than what he did due to being armoured and a lot bulkier. What was obviously a method of a last ditch-escape or unseen exit into the city, the crawlspace led down three stories of iron rungs before finally opening up into a carved out hole where dirt and stones had been removed. An illusion enchantment blocked the space where the ancient Ayleid masonry had been broken to clear access into the sewers and catacombs beneath the city which immediately assailed us with their stench.

 “Ugh,” Viconia was less than displeased to find herself in the depths of tunnels filled with the excrement of a million souls. “Why do cults always seem to be so fascinated by proximity to shit?”

 “Probably matches their personality’s.” I remarked wryly. “Although I believe you can crawl into any dark hole in Tamriel and find some sort of nest of scum.”

 “Very true.” Viconia seemed to glide through the shadows and never once seemed to put a foot out of place. “and the further you delve the closer you come to the Underdark.”

 We travelled through the darkness, guided by Baurus and the flickering light of the torch that he had lit as soon as he had reached the bottom of the rungs. This region under the city was unlike the older and less utilised catacombs where I had escaped during the Emperor’s assassination; it was much more heavily utilised by the teeming masses that had made the Imperial City home for the past millennia. Streams of effluent slowly shifted through the channels carved in the middle of the tunnels and we ensured that we moved around the open mouths of pipes where they disgorged even more waste into the mass. The chittering of rats and the signs of their nests were everywhere, some small and average in size and others leaving tracks that were considerably larger and matched the size of my own booted footprints. Dozens of other types of vermin and other unnameable creatures made these foul depths their home, feasting on each other and the mass that slowly made its way out into Lake Rumare through the hundreds of pipes and sewer exits dotted around the island.

 Fleshy masses of polyps clung to the walls and ceiling and mutant varieties of crabs seemed to click and scuttle away from the burning torch as the light played across their white, twisted forms. Chittering calls of goblins echoed from the depths and corpses of animals, creatures, men and mer were common in various stages of decay. In such a place darker things seemed to lurk, hinting their existences through the dragging marks through the filth and twisted remains of their prey that were left behind. Stepping across a bridge across the stream I laid eyes on the bloated, rotting corpse of what appeared to be an Altmer bobbing and floating slowly in the steam of pollution. Its eyes were white and staring into nothingness but as my foot gently pressed into the stonework of the bridge it suddenly rolled and faced in my direction, mouth opening wide and reaching out with a rotted arm that snapped from the movement. Viconia’s wicked laugh at my sudden flailing reaction from the mostly-destroyed zombie was even more frightening than its appearance as it sank away into the depths.

 Soon we came across some of the catacombs and long forgotten basements of buildings that hadn’t been used accessible to the surface in centuries. While a sight better than the stinking tunnels behind us there was no mistaking the decay and rot that seemed to permeate the masonry. Baurus seemed to steel us unerringly towards our destination, only stopping at certain crossroads in the tunnel network to briefly stare at the walls. Carefully watching wherever he looked I could see the tiny, fingernail sized marks that he had scratched there over the weeks previous. Unnoticeable except for those knowing what to look for they lead us ever deeper until we came across a solid wooden door reinforced by metal alongside a staircase leading up a level above us.

 “Right then,” he said, stopping before the door and whispering to Viconia and I in hushed tones. “Through this door there is a room with a table where those wishing to join the Mythic Dawn go to meet the Sponsor.”

 He motioned to the staircase to the left of the door where it faded into the darkness outside the pitiful amount of torchlight. “I happen to know that if you go up the stair there, you can get a vantage point on the meeting room. Like I said before, I’ll handle the meeting and you both will be my backup. Keep watch from the walkway up the stairs in case of trouble.”

 I shifted slightly on my feet, peering up into the darkness and pulling my cloak and hood tighter over my head and body. From where it was wrapped around my throat I lifted up the leather mask I had made for just these sorts of occasions until all that could be seen on my flesh was my eyes, top of my nose and the lower portion of my forehead. Viconia had taken similar precautions, pulling her hood tight over her head and ensuring that her white hair was tucked away from where light could reach it.

 “You can count on us.” I replied, my voice muffled now by the leather mask.”

 “Good. Now remember that we must not leave here without the book, it’s the only chance of finding their hideout and the Amulet.” He signed heavily in an effort to calm his nerves. “I’m glad to have you two at my back.”

 Nodding to the two of us he stood near the door long enough the illuminate the stairs with the feeble light of his torch. As we reached the top of the stairs he turned, took a deep breath and pulled the door closed as he stepped through.

 Viconia and I slid through the shadows, her upbringing in the depths of the world and my vampiric nature making a mockery of the difficulties of moving through the lightless catacombs and sewers. As the torch faded my sight suddenly seemed to shift, changing the deepest depths of inky blackness into a world of grey tones and shimmering life forces as rats, cockroaches and other unfathomable creatures shifted in the deep. I could see clearer than what I could in the middle of the day, and my other senses seemed to expand until I could hear the slightest of movements of insects burrowing through the ancient masonry and dirt surrounding us.

 Behind the doors lay a room devoid of any ornamentation except for a single table no different from the hundreds scattered in every tavern and a pair of equally unremarkable chairs on either side. A tiny shuttered lantern sat in the centre of the table, its light barely able to hold back the gloom especially as Baurus doused his torch as he walked carefully over to it and sat down. The increased darkness allowed both Viconia and I to shift across the walkway, pressing into the walls and only those with similar sight as ourselves could ever hope to spy us lurking in the shadows.

 For several minutes we waited, crouched and controlling our breathing so that we barely moved and made no sound at all. The darkness held no secrets for either of us, and I found myself counting the echoing drips of moisture from within the room as I watched Baurus sitting quietly in front of the table and it’s burning lantern. For a while it appeared as though we had come to these depths beneath the Imperial City for nothing, but after what felt to be an age footsteps began to echo from the doorway on the opposite side of the room from where we entered.

 Slowly, the door opposite Baurus and closest to the vacant seat opened, a new glow of torchlight suddenly increasing the visibility. I found myself shrinking further into the shadows as they shifted and swayed in time with the bobbing lantern. Carefully and with an elven grace the new figure closed the door, briefly pausing to blow out the flickering flame inside the lantern it carried and moving over to the table and Baurus. Not a word was spoken as the being carefully sat down in the seat, looking across the table and steepling its fingers and leaning forward with elbows pressing into the table’s surface. Almost every inch of the figure was clothed in the same blood-red robes worn by the Emperor’s assassins, flowing and loose but only revealing the pale golden-tanned hands visible in the light. Even with my vampiric sight I could only see hints of the face under the hood, the tiny glints of eyes briefly visible as they studied Baurus in a burning intensity.

 “So,” the figure said at last, the voice deep but strangely musical like all elfkind. “You want to become one of the Chosen of Mehrunes Dagon.”

 It was a statement rather than a questions, and Baurus sat still, staring at the figure and not even twitching to show the nerves that he would have to have been feeling.

 “The Path is difficult, but the rewards are great.” The Figure continued, the door opening again at an unspoken command and a second figure appeared, similarly robed and hooded but carrying a box in its hands. The box was flat and wide but the lid was open, revealing a velvet interior containing a single leather bound book within.

 “I have the book you seek. With it and the Master’s three other books you will possess the key to enlightenment. But do you have the wit and strength to use the key you have been given? If so, I will see you next at Dagon’s Shrine…”

 The soft scuttling sound of movement snatched at my attention and I found myself staring at the other door on the opposite side of the walkway. Viconia had hidden herself in the shadows but as I turned and glanced around, ignoring the “Sponsor’s” words to Baurus I realised with a start that I could not see or find where Viconia was hiding. More effectively than a potion of Invisibility she had seemingly disappeared and for a moment I panicked, glancing about only to watch as the far door opened. Another pair of robed cultists had appeared, both carrying lanterns and illuminating me as surely as I was carrying one myself as they entered the room on the walkway.

 For several seconds we stared at each other, the looks of confusion mirroring each other’s faces even as they struggled to comprehend my humanoid shadow pressed into the wall. All that was visible were my eyes, the rest was swallowed up under the grey-black cloak wrapped securely around my shoulders and making it nearly impossible to discern what was underneath. The moment of surprise was snuffed like a blown out candle, and they both moved with startling swiftness, spitting their words of conjuration and summoning their daedric weapons and equipment from the ruinous depths of Oblivion.

 Neither of them got the chance to finish however. Like a malignant spider crouched and awaiting prey, Viconia dropped from the ceiling where she had been hanging precariously with her hands and feet pressed into whatever grooves and cracks allowed purchase. Neither one of the robed acolytes of Mehrunes Dagon knew or realised the threat until the one standing at the rear was suddenly crushed under the full weight of Viconia’s armoured body. with as much force as she could gather she dropped onto his chest and spine with both armoured boots driving into the cultist. Sickening cracks were audible over the sudden pained cry and breathless grunts as the air was driven out of him but within a second it was over, a dagger flashing in the darkness and reappearing sheathed in crimson.

 As he prepared to charge me, the second cultist didn’t fare any better, suddenly trapped between two foes and unable to even attempt turning around. Before he could react he too was thrown forward, slamming chest and face first into the moist, damp stones with the weight of a Drow bearing down on him. A strangulated scream echoed through the room and the catacombs, his half-formed armour dissolving into nothing as Viconia stabbed him in the throat and began sawing away with her blade.

 The others for their credit exploded into action, the seated Sponsor kicking back in his seat and leaping to his feet with suspicious ease while his colleague stood frozen to the spot in surprise. Baurus transformed from a seemingly harmless nobody into a precise and powerful fighter, hurling the table with a kick at the cultists even as he rolled over backwards on his chair with the ease of an acrobat. He rose to his feet, a dagger appearing in his hand but now faced with the rapidly armouring forms of a pair of angry cultists there was little that he could hope to accomplish, Member of the Blades or not. The two moved quickly, the Sponsor swinging a daedric blade the length of my arm with an unusual amount of proficiency, and his fellow cultist slammed the lid on the box shut, before backing away towards the door as quickly as he could.

 Baurus picked up his chair and lashed it out in front of him, swinging it by a leg even as it was smashed into kindling by a swing of the serrated daedric sword. He was moving away from the black and red clad cultist now who seemed hell-bent on eviscerating him on the gleaming edge, while wielding a dagger no larger than the one I used to skin and gut rabbits. It was far from an even fight as the cultist began swinging with gusto, but it didn’t remain that way for long.

 I fell off the edge of the balcony and tucking myself into a ball as I landed I rolled to my feet in a single smooth motion. The two surviving cultists on the lower level were now focussed on killing Baurus and escaping with the book respectively. They were not paying attention to anything else in the room and this lack of awareness cost them dearly.

 A wet smack echoed over the sounds of the scuffle as a blood-wet ball of hair and skin hit the cultist carrying the book right in the face, staggering him with the force of the blow. From her position on the walkway Viconia had hurled the severed head of the second cultist she had ambushed at his colleague trying to escape. He tripped and fell, now covered with the fresh arterial blood and finding himself staring at the twitching features of his fellow cultist as the life finally faded from his eyes. The Sponsor, still attempting to slaughter Baurus suddenly found himself faced with me instead as I parried his sword with the gleaming edge of Sunchild.

 Within a heartbeat we were trading blows, the unnatural edge of his daedric blade sparking off the flawless metal of my Ayleid sword. We twisted, ducked, weaved and sliced and although he was a swordsman of considerable skill he was nothing in comparison to those I had faced for the past month at Cloud Ruler. His footwork was imprecise, his motions telegraphed his every move and my vampiric strength and speed allowed me to quickly gain the upper hand. Within a dozen of strikes and parries he faltered, having his blade turned aside by a single twist of my wrist and leaving him wide open for my riposte. There was little more than a grunt from him as the tip of Sunchild pieced through the black substance of his breastplate, scraping first on the metal and then on his ribs before cutting deeply into his heart.

 Behind him the last surviving cultist died at Viconia’s hand. Shrieking horribly, he was brutally and almost sadistically disembowelled by the Dark Elf. She stabbed him in the guts with Dragonbane before tearing it out of him in a wash of blood and viscera, stepping aside from the sudden spray of gore. His scream was drawn out and painful as he died, falling to his knees keening as he attempted and failed to simultaneously scoop up and hold in his slithering innards.

 Baurus seemed to pale at the sight of Viconia standing over her helpless victim as he died and armour sloughed away from his skin until only a pitiful corpse dressed in ruined robes was left behind. The whole time she stood over him, a blank expression on her face and watching with interest as he went about dying messily.

 “That could have gone better.” Baurus finally said as he managed to gulp down his unease at Viconia’s actions and the screams of the cultist finally stopped echoing.  “I wasn’t expecting to have some many of them come here at once.”

 “They must’ve been expecting trouble.” I replied, watching as he carefully stepped around the growing pool of gore that creeped over the ancient stonework. The case containing the book had fallen to the floor but had remained undamaged except for the few splatters of blood across its cover “But we have the book and that’s all that matters.”

 “What now?” Viconia said, stepping through the pooling blood with little heed to the splashes of the liquid over her boots.

 “Now I take this to Tar-Meena and we hopefully find where these bastards are hiding. It could be some time though before she manages to translate the four books together.”

 I shrugged, wiping Sunchild clean on the Sponsor’s robes and noting the long boned face of the Altmer under the hood. “We have no plans for the next few days.”

 “Good. Keep checking in at the Boarding house but otherwise feel free to wander about the city however you like. There’s no telling how long it will take before Tar-Meena manages to work her way through all this.”

 We made our way out of the sewers by a different route, emerging from one of the dozens of various storm drains and hatchways scattered throughout the city. Smelling of effluent and bodily fluids we surprisingly didn’t turn any eyes or draw attention to ourselves. Baurus had purposely led us out of one of the exits just outside the north wall where the majority of leather workshops were located and where we found ourselves almost wishing to be back in the sewers. It was here that some of the primary sewer exits could be found and the city’s fellmongers and tanners utilised the streams of waste to their advantage for the process of curing the hundreds of hides that found their way to their shops every day. As a trio of filthy but armed individuals emerging from the sewer, we appeared as though we were one of the many parties fulfilling contracts to cull the creatures of the undercity.

 Complaining bitterly, both Viconia and I returned to the Boarding house as Baurus took the book directly to the Arcane University. Along the way, every person downwind of us provided a clear berth no matter how thickly the crowds pressed around us. Viconia especially complained every step of the way, cursing in Drow and common and glaring at anyone who even thought about looking in her direction. Luther himself didn’t even bat an eyelid at our appearances as we pushed our way inside, and our dark expressions ensured that none of the patrons raised any voice of complaint as we strode past them before disappearing into the various washrooms.

 Stripping ourselves of everything we wore, our clothing was handed off to a pair of young running boys that Luther sent in our direction. With a promise of a gold septim each, they immediately sped away to the launderers. Our armour was set aside in pieces and for the first few hours of the evening both of us went through the laborious duty of scouring, wiping and polishing every piece. Carefully not just removing the coatings of filth and blood and their smells but also ensuring that rust and decay wouldn’t begin to creep in. Both of us worked alone, sitting on adjacent tables and barely talking to one another as we concentrated on ensuring that every centimetre of our protection was maintained while eating our evening meals.

 Baurus returned shortly after the tenth bell, just as the raucous activity within the dining hall began to grow as liquor began to flow more freely. He had met with the Argonian researcher, had provided her with our retrieved copy of the fourth book and he promised that she would send word as soon as she discovered anything. It would be some time though before anything could be made of the book’s writings so for the coming days we were free to do as we pleased.

 As the three of us retired for the evening I found myself restless and sleep proved elusive. The thirst had been building steadily for days and after that evening events I knew that there was no more suppressing it. I knew that I was losing the battle against the darkness, the lack of emotion I had felt as I casually watched Viconia slay the cultists in the tunnels was almost more horrifying to me than the blood-urge. Even as that same urge made me rise, dress myself in my freshly washed and scrubbed clothes and fade into the night like a whisper I couldn’t help feeling the scream of desperation from the man that I once echo through the depths of my subconscious. It was enough that the question of my sanity made me challenge the notion of whether I had any remaining as I stalked my way through the darkened streets for suitable prey.

 The rising orbs of Masser and Secunda, and the dozens of lit lanterns and lamps lining the streets did nothing to reveal my presence as the vampire rose to the surface. My flesh twisted and tightened, fangs sliding out of my jaw and gums as my visage turned into one of a predator of the night. The darkened streets and alleyways were throbbing with life, the pulsating sources of lifeblood clouding my vision as I slunk down an alleyway, barely even seeing the hooded figure step around the corner and confront me with a knife glinting in the gloom. There was a moment of panic from the figure as the would-be murderer realised that his mark was not as lost and nowhere nearly as defenceless as he had initially believed. Before he could even finish following through with the stab meant to skewer my heart I had already slammed him into the wall. Twisting the knife out of his grasp with a savage jerk I bit into his throat with enough force that a bloody glob of flesh was stuck between my teeth. Almost utterly drained, I disposed of the corpse in a nearby garden but not before sawing away at the neck to obscure the jagged holes where my fangs had punctured his jugular.

 With midnight truly passed I returned to the Boarding house, clambering up the wall like a spider and slipping inside without any of those within realising I had even left my room at all. To those still occupying the dining hall and Viconia in the adjacent room there was nothing to suggest that I had done anything other than collapse into my bed. Finally crawling into the collection of furs and crushed straw I slept well past the hour where breakfasts were cooked in the thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city.

 Viconia and I found ourselves with little to do during the daylight hours, so used to the monotony of traveling through the wilds or the regimented schedule of the Blades we grew weary with remaining in the boarding house. Instead we found ourselves strolling the streets together, aimlessly wandering and doing little more than taking in the sights of the greatest city in Tamriel.

 As we made our way through the different districts I found myself increasing amused at Viconia’s expression of astonishment and almost child-like marvel at the city she had found herself in. Despite her obvious unease of such crowds she was staring and studying everything, looking around at anything that caught her eye and was soon asking me questions with an unquenchable curiosity.

 “So none of the other cities are like this?” She said as we made our way through the interior gates into the Arena district.

 “Not comparably within Tamriel. There is nothing like this place anywhere that I know of, and especially not as large or with so many people living in it.”

 “It is crowded to say the least.” She pushed her way through a pair of expensively dressed women of some noble house I didn’t recognise. Their expressions were both indignant and haughty as they glanced over the shoddy clothing that Viconia wore, and the obvious beauty underneath that even rags couldn’t hide. She returned their stares with one of such intensity that they both paled and scuttled away into the crowd. “You could place the entirety of Menzoberranzan into just one of this city’s districts and still be left with space. As for the population? It would be swallowed up in this mass as though you had simply spat into the lake.”

 “Is Menzoberranzan your home?” I asked, feeling somewhat proud of myself at getting the pronunciation right the first time.

 “I have no home, but I once did consider that city to be one.” For a moment an expression of sadness washed over her before her eyes hardened into diamonds once more.

 “What was it like?”

 “Nothing like this.” She waved her hands at everything around us, especially towards the towering heights of White Gold Tower. “It was smaller, more packed and much, _much_ more deadly to live in.”

 “If your skills are testament to how dangerous it was to live there then I can easily believe that.”

 “It was, and I don’t think I can ever understand how so many can live in such proximity and yet have so little death. Menzoberranzan had maybe a third of the population of Bruma, or even Kvatch. Even so, most of those were slaves.”

 “My world is nothing like this, and I could hardly ever believe something like this was even possible, let alone imagine what it could look like. Sure, there are Drow cities that can rival the size and majesty of surface cities but if you had appeared in the Underdark and told me that such a place like this existed then I would have dragged out your tongue and butchered you lest your insanity was contagious.”

 “Don’t the Drow build cities?”

 She scowled for a moment, stepping around a small huddle of punters as they shouted and placed bets on upcoming fights and duels within the Arena. The towering walls of the circular structure cast us into shadow as we walked around it, hearing the blood thirsty roars of the thousands crammed into the tiered seats within. “The Drow are not like surfacers. We do not dream or build or imagine anything other than death to our foes and the accumulation of power. Where you all seem to step forward willingly into the unknown, the Drow turn their backs to the mists of discovery, and our feet are planted deep into the stone. We are stagnant, unwilling to move or shift and now that I have seen such things with my own eyes I can see how Lloth’s influence poisons us to keep us this way.”

 I paused for a moment and looked at her at the sudden overwhelming vehemence that left her shaking in a mixture of anger and fear. “Lloth?”

 “The Dark Mother, the Queen of Spiders, and the Lady of Chaos. She and she alone controls all the Drow and none can oppose her might.”

 “You make her sound like a god more than a ruler.”

 “That’s because she is.” She looked at me quizzically at my expression. “What? Not all gods are like your Nine, remaining unseen, unheard, and insubstantial as mist. Some stride the world in their physical forms and are all the more terrible for it. But especially now that I am here, I question her teachings even more than I did before.”

 “Do all the Drow worship her?”

 “Most do, there are others but she outlaws them. Her teachings however are that _only those who survive are strong._ My world is a brutal one and the weak are culled. Power is only grabbed by those with the strength to do so and those who cannot do not live for very long. While I now know that I have always doubted the system that my kind live, I can see the flaws in their unquestioning belief.”

 She spread her arms wide, again motioning to everything around us and shrugging her shoulders at the sight of hundreds of metres of towering white masonry spearing the heavens above us. “How can I account for all this? The Drow are strong, the weak are destroyed and only those fit to rule do so, we don’t have gods of Knowledge, or Crafts and Trade. There is no space for trade, commerce or innovation. Love and trust are for the dead or the insane but yet, here I stand staring into something that for all rights should not exist.”

 “So you obviously don’t believe in her anymore.”

 “Don’t let your _ak’nen_ be filled with _shu_ , _Jaluk…_ ” She spat forcibly. “I have not been her follower for some time, possibly even when I served as a priestess.”

 She stopped, suddenly realising that she had said more than she had wished to reveal and clenching her jaw. For a while I believed that she wasn’t going to say anything further, but with visible effort she forced herself to relax as we rounded the Arena into a small area of gardens. “I serve the Nightsinger now, and only she and she alone will have my fealty.”

 “I’ve heard you speak of her before.”

 “That you have. Shar kept me alive on the surface and while I still breathe I will serve her. She is the Goddess of Darkness and through her graces she provides her faithful with luck, and the knowledge to face down their foes. It is with her patronage that I hope to survive long enough to spit in Lloth’s eyes.”

 For a while I walked alongside her, absorbing the revelations and feeling a strange feeling of realisation that grew stronger until it exploded behind my eyes. “Wait, is she also a goddess of mysteries and secrets?” I suddenly spluttered.

 Viconia’s eyes narrowed and she stopped in place, staring at me and making me suddenly feel very nervous. “Yes... How do _you_ know that?”

 “Unless there’s a ridiculous coincidence then the goddess you know as _Shar_ in the Underdark, we on the surface know as _Nocturnal._ ”

 “I don’t see your point.”

 I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue, looking about as the crowds to see if anyone was listening too intently to our conversation. “Nocturnal is one of the Daedric Princes, and after all we have gone through recently you might understand how that mightn’t be a good thing to have others knowing.”

 She grinned slightly, but the expression did little to make me feel calmer. “I can see how that can be a problem. And that’s if they are the same. There are so many gods and goddesses and minor deities in the world that while it is possible, they could be entirely different. Is this a problem for you?”

 For a moment I wasn’t sure, before I briefly shrugged and tried to avoid her gaze. “Not really. I’m not one for believing in the gods, and at this point I couldn’t really care what you believe in as long as it isn’t involving the end of the world.”

 I grinned for a second. “and as long as your belief doesn’t involve me being sacrificed in any way.”

 “I wouldn’t worry about that Jaluk. I haven’t performed any rituals since coming here and I’d have to find a more suitable candidate that your pitiful self anyway.”

 “Was that a joke?” her expression may have been her usual stony mask but there was a hint of an amused twinkle in her eye as she regarded my bewilderment.

 “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She replied cryptically. “In the meantime though, you can show me more of the wonders of this world.”

 We continued our way through the city, walking casually and chatting idly as we did so. What felt like a strange date if only in name, I showed her around the few portions of the city that I was familiar with. The first years within the legion were mostly spent within the Legion Fortress that took up the majority of the surface buildings of the Imperial Prison Complex. My time within the training cohorts for the first two years had been limited for time spent within the city proper to reduce the chance of desertions or unrest caused by fresh, rowdy recruits spilling into every brothel and taphouse available. We made our way through the Arena District, managing to make our way inside for a handful of bouts and satisfy not only Viconia’s curiosity but also her bloodlust at the sight of the reigning champion eviscerating a pair of opponents with ridiculous ease.

 Afterwards we found ourselves in the sights and colourful maze of the Market District, and I watched Viconia’s expression closely as she marvelled at the riot of colours, goods, items and individuals making their way through the press. Perfumed and silk wearing nobles strode about, each more and more gaudy than the last and jugglers, fire breathers and other assorted entertainers practiced their crafts to the amusement of the hundreds walking between the market stalls. Somewhere I had managed to procure a few choice pieces of food, munching away on a long string of taffy as Viconia voraciously devoured a Sweet Roll with all the grace of a starved Argonian. Within minutes she had managed to acquire a collection of various treats and snacks from the stands where their freshly made goods were on display before wolfing them down one after another with obvious pleasure.

 Everything was new and alien to her and she was slowly beginning to realise that the lightless realm of the Underdark had left her devoid of experiences that she now found herself practically drowning in. We entered theatres, strolled through Green Emperor Way and entered each of the chapels of the Nine within the Temple Quarter. Even the enormous Temple of the One we found ourselves inside and Viconia wandered around the interior, studying the carvings in the marble and looking over the enormous unlit brazier. With a voice filled with awe she simply stated that the entirety of Menzoberranzan’s house of worship dedicated to Lloth could fit inside with no hindrance, before leaving with her curiosity sated.

 From place to place, and street to street she was soon leading me on in her overwhelming desire to know and experience all that she could during the short stay within the City. For the better part of three days we roamed and explored, our collection of coins noticeably dwindling as she sampled anything and everything that she locked eyes on. For the first time since meeting her she was relaxed somewhat and no longer as highly strung as a lute string. The change was incredible to behold, turning the beautiful, but deadly Drow into a creature of pure radiance that eclipsed all around her with her vibrant intensity. The darkness clouding her soul remained however, and she remained quick to slight and to anger, venting her frustration openly and viciously at the first hint of it appearing in her yellow eyes.

 But otherwise the days and evenings were uneventful, and by the third day we were both talking freely compared to the days and weeks since meeting at Bruma. As night began to fall we found ourselves back within the Boarding house once more, seated at one of the dozens of tables and talking about everything we could think of. I told her of my time in the legion, the patrolling of the ashlands and the various tribes vying for independence and the way they lived. She absorbed all that I told her, listening intently and asking questions about everything from the rites the ashlanders and dunmer practiced around death, what they ate and drank, what equipment they used, gods they believed in, the Corpus diseases and the monstrosities that it created. With great detail I described great battles of the Legion from throughout history, the tactics used, the equipment utilised in regions like Blackmarsh, describing everything from the correct use of a bow to how the Dunmer brewed their beers and other alcohols.

 She regaled me on stories of her home in the Underdark, the petty houses, city-states and the overall matriarchal authority of the Drow’s society. She spoke about the culture, the civilisation built upon the backs of the hundreds of thousands of slaves toiling in the depths of the world and the blood that was constantly spilled by the whims of a spider goddess. Tales of blood and death that seemed oddly enough to match those of mine of years in Northern Vvardenfell were shared and she told me of the beasts and inhabitants of her world. The horrific mind-flaying Illithids, the grim, cynical Duergar, the untrustworthy kuo-toa and the great beasts of the dark. Her tales of the great wyrms of the depths were met with a little scepticism despite my knowledge of the long extinct dragons of the north, but I was highly interested in her stories of ancient, long abandoned cities in the highest caverns and tunnels. While never seeing them for herself she had heard stories of cities and structures of pipes and cogs, pistons and steam in the upper levels that could only be reached through journeys several days long through some of the most treacherous of terrains. I had little doubt that she spoke of the long since vanished dwemer but her tales of what lengths had to be undertaken just to reach such places allowed me to gain some understanding how our worlds had remained apart.

 We continued our stories, finishing our evening meals and sipping away at our flagons as we spoke. Viconia never seemed to have the same drink twice, trying and sampling every one that she could and obviously taking note of the ones that she enjoyed. I stayed with Cyrodiilic brandy, but not once harbouring the thought of attempting to keep up with her. She seemed to have an unnatural ability to drink prodigious amounts of alcohol before its effects could be felt. This was a fact that had won her a significant amount of coins on the second evening at the boarding house after her orcish opponent had to be taken to the healers afterwards.

 “So,” she said after finishing a story of how she had bested an illithid with such graphic descriptions that two of the nearby patrons were looking somewhat nauseous. “Has there ever been anyone special in your life? A thief of your heart?”

 I choked on my brandy somewhat, brushing at the front of my leather shirt where it had spilled. “What?”

 “Don’t play coy.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice that was filled with her typical disdain. “You know what I ask.”

 I shook my head. “It’s a legionary’s lot in life to have little in the way of relationships or family. Most usually wait until after they complete their service before settling down.”

 Motioning with my flagon in her direction where she sat, legs crossed on top of the table I continued. “I would ask you the same thing but Drow don’t believe in love.” My tone was sarcastic but she didn’t take offense.

 “It’s not something that exists in our world. Relationships are… different in the Underdark.” There was a moment where she chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I would almost say that they are more business arrangements, but that would be inaccurate and suggest a balance of power in such a situation. Females choose their partners, and it is not uncommon for particular males to have a few Drow women seeking them.”

 “From what you have told me that doesn’t sound like the contentions of suitors for a husband.”

 “Indeed, it is not. Men are nothing but slaves, no different from a good rapier or fine clothes. Sure, some may rise to overseers of the rest of the slaves, or perhaps the lowest rank of cleric in the temples. However, for any male to show their attraction towards a woman was more than enough reason to eviscerate them.”

 I struggled not the smile at the sudden twitch of movement of a handful of those seated at the other tables around us. Most of the regulars had learned not to cross the beautiful dark elf I had as a companion, and at her words all those who had been glancing in her direction now made active attempts not to anymore. “Men would be claimed, used for whatever purpose desired and then discarded once no longer useful. It was a simple, natural order of things.”

 “Discarding doesn’t sound pleasant.”

 “It isn’t.” Her eyes glowed with the unusual intensity as they always seemed to do when her thoughts turned to darkness. “For those men who find themselves desired by more than one woman however? That’s a great deal worse in comparison, especially to the ways of the surface. The women would compete, the stronger would be the victor and then once she had gained her fill or the male had outlived his usefulness she would provide the loser with the leftovers.”

 The darkness behind her eyes grew even more intense. “The accepted way of such a process was to drop the male off at the lesser woman’s lodging. Usually bereft of skin.”

 Where there had been little interest by those around us there was absolutely none remaining now; a fact that was not lost on Viconia as her lips curled in a savage grin.

 It was at this point where I was beginning to feel more and more like prey to the gleaming-eyed Drow that Baurus made his first appearance in the past days. Almost like a shadow he emerged from the crowd and gave us a welcoming smile despite his unease around Viconia.

 “You two got a moment?” he asked, nodding towards the stairs and with a serious expression.

 We nodded, both standing and following him up after leaving little of our drinks remaining. Once more we found ourselves inside his hidden room, safely behind wards of muffling and secure to talk freely.

 “Tar-Meena finished her studies on the books early this morning.” He said simply as we had made ourselves comfortable. “She’s quiet pissed off about it all though.”

 “Pissed off? What happened?” I asked, watching Baurus grin wearily.

 “The trick to the books is remarkably simple, and she has spent the last three days looking for some cryptic cypher or riddle within the pages. As a result she failed to notice the most obvious message of them all.”

 Viconia looked perplexed. “Which was what exactly?”

 There was a chuckle from the young Blade. “Every few paragraphs have the first letter stylised and decorated.”

 “You’re kidding me? That simple?”

 “Yep.” He handed me a note that I quickly looked over before handing it to Viconia. It simply read; _Green Emperor Way Where Tower Touches Midday Sun_.

 “That’s ridiculous.” Viconia muttered as she looked over the note before handing it back to him. “Are they simple-minded?”

 “Unfortunately not. If it was too difficult for potential recruits to find their main lair, then they wouldn’t have been able to recruit such numbers as they have. The trick to it all is only when you have all four books together and by thoroughly reading each one do you find the message. The exact location of their base is only found by being at a specific place at a specific time.”

 “Which we have to go find tomorrow.”

 “Ha! I like your initiative but I’ve already done the legwork for you.” He pulled out a separate piece of parchment when he had hurriedly scrawled out a surprisingly accurate map of Cyrodiil. A cross in the eastern province towards the border of Morrowind was easily visible. “That’s your copy. I’ve already sent a report back to Cloud Ruler containing the original so expect that the Grandmaster will deploy some Blades to meet you.”

 “What about yourself? Will you be joining us?”

 There was a moment of disappointment that creased his face. “Unfortunately no. The Old Man had sent orders that once the location of the cult had been found that I was to tidy up any loose ends in the city and return to Cloud Ruler. It appears as though most Blades within Cyrodiil are being ordered to return to defend the Heir.”

 “But don’t worry.” His face broke out into a grin and he laughed. “As much as I want to see this through to the end, I’ll be nice and comfy and thinking of you both while you go wandering around County Cheydinhal.”

 “It would’ve been good to have your sword with us.” I admitted honestly, before turning and looking at Viconia. “Guess we’re leaving tomorrow then.”

 “Lovely.” She replied, looking somewhat less-than-pleased.

 For the rest of the night we slept in our lodgings, retiring shortly after our conversations and questions to Baurus. He knew little more than what we did but the map was very specific. North east of Cheydinhal within an easy day’s march of the city lay the waters of Lake Arrius, and our path led directly to this remote place. The lake itself was in fact two lakes separated by a sheer rise where the ground split and cracked as it rose from the Niben into the towering height of the Jeral Mountains. A waterfall continuously cascaded down the sheer drop all year round, its waters fed by the hundreds of minor streams and tributaries and several underground springs. Melting snow in the spring and the yearly storms of the mountains flowed into this region. Despite its relative proximity to Cheydinhal and the location of a series of ancient aqueducts leading from the higher portion of the lake to the city, it was rarely visited and few people had cause to travel so far into the depths. A handful of roads lead to the lake and the waterfall to ease the passage for maintenance parties inspecting the long aqueducts but otherwise it was dangerous and rarely travelled.

 The map that had been provided as part of the clues to the cult showed that their lair was somewhere near the waterfall and where the two levels of the Lake met. While far from accurate it provided enough clues that Viconia and I had decided that whatever the cult’s base was, it was likely to be underground and hidden in such a way that only those seeking it would be able to find it.

 As we rose in the morning and prepared for the journey Baurus found us and simply handed us a message that had travelled from Cloud Ruler during the night. Such was the speed and efficiency of the Imperial Message System that his message to Jauffre had arrived within hours of leaving the Imperial City the morning previously and Jauffre’s response had made it back before the following morning had even begun. A journey of over two hundred kilometres had been made in less than half a day, and allowed us to know that a dozen Blades had been tasked to join us at the joining of the lakes. They would be waiting for us there, and would be fully prepared to burn out the cult and retrieve the Amulet of Kings.

 Dressed and ready in our armour, with travelling supplies and equipment packed we said farewell to Baurus and made our way along the road to Cheydinhal. Returning on the same barge and retrieving our horses we started along the road towards our destination, with every step feeling strangely more and more familiar as the Niben merged with the eastern Jerals and the Northern Valus Mountains. This was the gateway to Morrowind and the home of the Dunmer. The forests of the highlands here were a different, darker variety compared to the lush greenery of the Great Forest of County Chorrol. There was no heightened ceiling of towering redwoods here, just the increasingly thick, dense forests that turned into impassable jungles the further you travelled south. This was where the tundra of Skyrim met the fungal plains of Morrowind, and the impenetrable depths of Blackmarsh encroached against all before it. In such a place the peoples mixed in similar ways, the solid stonework of the Nords being shaped in familiar constructions that would not have looked out of place on Vvardenfell itself.

 During the three-day journey we camped alongside the road, making idle conversation and passing the time in a more pleasant manner compared to the silent marches of the previous weeks. Travelling by road and on horseback we made our way through the dozens of farmsteads and past the recently barren fields where wheat had been harvested and their winter crops of other cereals were being prepared. Cheydinhal was one of the breadbaskets of Cyrodiil, and between the enormous quantities of grains and crops grown here and the herds of cows, pigs and oxen bred for their meats there was few places that could match the quantity or the quality of its products. With winter approaching most of the locals were preparing for the snows that would gently blanket the rolling hills and freeze the streams and rivers solid as they cut through the jagged cliffs and steep rises. While nothing like the snows of the North it was still enough that preparations had to be made and care taken that herds and crops were not devastated by the sharp frosts that were known to strike on occasion.

 Viconia was now by far a more amicable travelling companion, her appetite whetted she now sought to learn and understand more of the surface. Questions were asked every few kilometres, and I began to teach her as much as I could of the ways of surviving in the wild. From the best ways to track game, the construction of simple snares all the way to identifying useful herbs, plants, mushrooms and other flora for the use in potions, poultices, and poisons. She listened intently, learning all that she could and regaling me with her own knowledge and descriptions of similar such ingredients from the depths of her birthplace. The journey was otherwise uneventful, making good progress at a steady pace and after two nights sleeping alongside the road we found ourselves outside the walls of Cheydinhal.

 With the distance between the city and Lake Arrius we decided that it would be best if we left our horses at one of the several stables outside the city. By making the rest of our way on foot it would draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. Sore and weary from even the light travel in the saddle, the decision to make our way the rest of the journey on foot was an easy one, especially after staying a third night within the Coaching Inn where we had stabled our horses. With evening approaching it would not have provided us any benefit trying to make the journey on foot, especially how the increasing chances of a fight was becoming ever more likely with every step we took.

 Four days since leaving the Imperial City we once again rose, exchanging saddles and saddlebags for boots and packs and making our way along the rarely travelled path to the north. Little more than a track hewn through the gradually increasing forestry there were no cobblestones underfoot or milestones to border it, but the packed soil ensured that we made good progress nonetheless.

 The Lake itself was an impressive sight, cutting through the rising slopes and jagged cliffs of the lower Jerals and as long as the Imperial City was wide. The twin lakes cascaded over the slopes, the roar of the waterfall heard over the gentle birdsong from the forest as it encroached on the sand and gravel shoreline. Towering above us, the ancient moss clad aqueducts ran from the top of the cliff and the channels carved into the stone, connecting together into a thicker raised waterway four stories tall, and wide enough for a wagon to roll along the edges with little fear of slipping off. Being fed with little more than gravity the aqueducts travelled the dozens of kilometres to the South East and fed into the well and fountain system that helped supply Cheydinhal with water. During the summer months these aqueducts ensured that the city did not want for water and Viconia and I gazed up at the towering stone arches, looking over the canal’s that sat on top as we followed the path carved into the side of the cliff.

 “I thought that the Blades were supposed to meet us here.” Viconia said as we made our way to the top of the carved staircase. The uppermost section of the cliff was where the dozens of metre wide channels flowed water into the minor conduits that connected to the wider aqueduct.

 “They were.” There was something about the area that had me on edge in such a way that I couldn’t believe was just down to the fact that we were close to the Cult’s lair. “I doubt that we managed to arrive before they have.”

 Somehow my bow found its way into my hands as some sense of danger pricked at the back of my mind. Used to hunting the wilds alone and surrounded by potential danger it was a familiar feeling that was almost comforting. Carefully I strung my bow, feeling the fletching of an arrow between my fingers at its notched end rested on the string and looking about the area trying to pinpoint the source of my unease.

 The upper level of the cliff was sharp and flat, the ancient stone worn smooth by countless years of flowing water before Imperial Engineers redirected a significant portion of the flow. Where the waterfall had once poured over an area several dozen metres wide, it now was contained to a smaller outlet, ten metres wide and easily over a metre deep. A sheer drop to our left was blocked only by a series of moisture-softened pegs with frayed and continuously damp ropes suspended at thigh height. Between the cliff to our left and the lapping waters to our right there was barely enough space for a trio of people to walk side by side. The entire lake tapered to this point, the wide body of water hundreds of metres across compressing into a space of grey slate and slowly decaying wood less than forty metres wide.

 Forests of dense pines crowded the life bearing waters of the lake, their roots digging into the rocks of the mountains and breaking it into dense soil that was covered by a thick layer of needles. Winter was approaching these mountains but these evergreens would ensure that even under the heaviest snowfall there would be spaces of colour.

 A growl rose unbidden from my throat as my steps echoed from my marching feet on the numerous boardwalks, the sense of unease growing stronger despite nothing untoward being visible. There was nothing in sight that seemed to warrant the sense of danger growing in my mind except for the fact itself that there was nothing in sight. No animals, no birdlife and especially no sight of any of the Blades that we were expecting to meet in the area.

 “Kaius.”

 Viconia’s voice snapped me out my narrowing gaze and intense scrutiny of the surround area and hearing her call me by my name sent shock and a strange tingle of excitement up my spine. My strange feeling of contentment was extremely short lived as she held up both her hands, one with her palm facing me and the other holding up what could only be a katana. The sword was still locked away in its scabbard, filled with water from where she had plucked it out of one of the water channels where it had been stuck just below the surface. Her other hand though was covered in a slightly damp but quickly drying and flaking red-brown substance that I could instantly identify and smell as blood.

 I took a single pace towards her, the distance between us being little more than half a dozen metres as we both realised what it meant. There were no Blades waiting for us as there were no longer any Blades left in the area. The smell of blood slowly began to make itself known to my mind as the deepening sense of wrongness increased dramatically. We had found ourselves not only at the site of a short lived battle but also the obvious, if uneconomical location of a trap.

 Before either of us could react I suddenly heard a _click-thump_ of a crossbow’s mechanism and the near-instant snap of taut sinew releasing tension. There was no time to react, or dodge or move away from the thin walkway that we were standing upon before the first bolts began to fly. I had barely even begun to move in the direction of our ambushers as I watched with a sickening horror as a bolt punched right into Viconia’s chest, followed by another that imbedded itself in her stomach.

 Time slowed, her eyes widening at the intrusion of the bolts as they ripped through her armour and into the flesh underneath. Both bolts had been shot with the significant force afforded to them by the weapon’s design, tearing through metal, chain-link and leather with ease before coming to rest with several inches of metal and wood stuck inside her body. She made no sound, grimacing at the pain and growing pale with the shock of the sudden impact of the bolts even as she folded over in agony. There was no time to react, no time to do anything but watch as she simply fell face first, dropping the dead Blade’s Katana with a clatter as my instincts took over.

 My bow was drawn back to the ear even as I turned with all the brutal strength of the vampire. There were still little traces of our enemies but my enhanced senses picked out the wrongness in the forest’s edge no less than thirty metres in front of us. Using enchantments or spells of invisibility the small number of attackers had been lying in wait almost in plain sight, waiting for us to make it halfway across the bridge before launching their surprise assault. As they moved their shimmering forms were suddenly clear to my eyes but I knew within seconds that this was not going to be a winning fight. Over a dozen forms of our foes moved in amongst the pine needles and burst into existence as their glamour’s fell away.

 Roaring with anger and frustration I loosed my first and only arrow of the fight, watching as one of the red-robed cultists bursting from the trees in their distinctive armour was thrown back with a scream of pain. I didn’t even have time to reach back and draw another arrow from its quiver as his companions levelled a collection of crossbows at me and fired a volley of bolts that I had no hope of evading.

 The first stuck me through the left shoulder, the steel-tipped head punching out my back and leaving the bolt imbedded to the fletching in muscle and meat. The second scraped past my cheek, tearing a gash and getting caught in my chainmail coif. The third and fourth hit me square in the chest, denting my breastplate, staggering me with their sheer force but robbed of their power enough by the steel that the points merely scratched at my flesh. The impacts alone however were enough to throw me backwards, my feet scrabbling for purchase on the moss-covered, slippery wood and stone. For what seemed to be minutes but was little more than heartbeats I teetered precariously on unsteady legs, before tripping on the ropes and falling over the edge of the cliff.


	9. Slaughter in the Caverns

I fell like a stone into the churning waters of the lower Lake, the breath being forced out of me as surely as being tackled by a minotaur. The impact cracked ribs and tore the wound in my shoulder and pushed the bolts in my breastplate deeper into my chest, filling my world with agony even as it was consumed by Lake Arrius. The solid impact of the water on my back nearly knocked me unconscious with the jolt alone and within seconds my mouth, nose and eyes were filled with cold snow melt from the upper Jerals. My mind was overwhelmed, the pain extraordinary and within seconds I found myself drowning as the heavy weight of my equipment and armour began dragging me to the bottom. There was nothing I could do as I felt myself lightly press into the silt where the waterfall had carved out a deep pool from the stone. My right arm was broken, several ribs cracked and lungs filling with water as I vainly struggled to rise or swim or simply breathe where there was no air to be found. I was drowning and there was nothing that I could do about it.

 The vampire within me was not troubled by such trivial things as pain and lack of oxygen. It rose up from the depths of my mind, barging my conscious self aside contemptuously and took control of my body. The surge of incredible, undeniable power that suddenly flooded my limbs forced my shattered body to rise and began clawing its way to the surface. My conscious self was left as a spectator as my head broke the surface, my left arm gripping the stones scattered around the base of the pool and despite my injuries I was hauled up onto one of the only spaces not submerged in the waterfall’s spray.

 What little remained of the man that I was had been consumed by the vampire’s instincts and refusal to die. Ribs cracked, a crossbow bolt lodged in my left shoulder, right forearm snapped where I had bounced off the cliff face and a chest already beginning to swell with bruising I was barely in any condition except to lay down and sleep. The vampire however was not going accept such a fate and running purely on instinct it began to treat my various wounds.

 With a sicking snap of bone and the sensation of splintered ends being ground together it forced my right arm out straight, the forearm crunching together from the muscles forcing the bones to lock back into place. If it wasn’t for the chainmail and padding underneath the jagged edges would have likely pierced the skin, but instead the arm had appeared as though I had grown a new elbow joint a few centimetres above the wrist. An intense burst of magicka set the bones, eased out the tension in the muscles and repaired the numerous severed blood vessels. With the full use of that arm returned it allowed the vampire to grip the bolt in my left shoulder and tear it out with a mighty heave, pulling the bodkin tip out with a spurt of blood.

 The wound in my shoulder was burning, feeling as though a massive infection had set in or the wound had turned gangrenous. This was an obvious sign of the bolt being poisoned. There was a slightly leaden feeling in the shoulder that had little to do with the injury, and a similar one where the other two bolts lodged in my breastplate had scraped the skin. Some kind of paralytic had been applied to the bodkin tips which meant that the cultists had not intended on killing us but capturing us instead. Whatever concoction had been used however was not effective on me due to my curse, and instead seemed to merely aggravate my vampiric side even further.

 Bursts of restoration magicka knitted wounds and stopped bleeding, the spells being far greater in intensity that what I would normally use due to the risk of sustaining permanent injuries and mutation. There was little time and no inclination to rest for even a second longer as the vampire merely swiped the last two bolts away with a dagger. Carefully with the point of the knife it dug the bolt heads out as best as possible to ensure they weren’t pressing into skin before beginning to rummage through my equipment to take stock of the damage.

 My bow was gone; the second I had lost in just as many months which was a fact that infuriated both me and my vampiric nature to no end. My quiver was empty, my pouches and equipment entirely soaked with water and blood and most of the contents of my pack and pouches were waterlogged and ruined. Most of the tiny clay bottles that I kept in my pouches with their wax stoppers were broken and their contents useless, but a handful did manage to survive intact. One was immediately torn open, the small collection of roots poured onto the surface of the damp boulder and ground into a paste with the hilt of a dagger. The small amount of mandrake root, collected along my travels was an incredibly useful herb despite its toxicity. Used to create tonics and poultices that could cure diseases and stop wounds from festering it was also useful as a mild sedative when mixed with other ingredients. A tiny amount of salvaged Cairn Bolete was also added to the slurry before I scooped up as much as I could and rubbed it into my gums with a finger tipped with a three-centimetre talon.

 I tried to ignore the fact that my body was purely running on instinct and that the vampire had fully come to the surface now. My face was elongated, every tooth in my mouth taped to a point and the muscles of my body were swollen and throbbing with a strength that could’ve allowed me to wrestle an ogre. I was hurt, angry and despite suffering injuries that should have killed me my blood was up and I was looking to murder something. The crushed paste of Mandrake Root, Cairn Bolete and a few of the other surviving ingredients immediately made its presence felt as it soaked through my gums and noticeably dulled the pain throughout my injured body.

 Dripping bloody water that pooled beneath my feet with every step I made my way back up the carved staircase to the top of the waterfall. I was tattered and torn, armour hanging off me in places but I was still alive and able to fight. Sunchild was gripped firmly in my right hand, the spiking waves of pain from the forcibly set and healed forearm focussing my mind somewhat from the predatory instincts of the vampire.

 There was no trace of any of the cultists or especially Viconia which was even more troubling. The use of poisoned bolts revealed that they would be taking her back to wherever they made their lair. While they may have been able to ambush us with the use of invisibility potions and spells, there was no hiding the fact that they were very lax and inexperienced in covering their tracks. Confident at my death from the fall over the edge they had not even bothered to come and ensure that I had not survived, instead simply taking Viconia and the cultist I had shot in the chest away with them.

 Their foot prints and the trail of blood from their wounded or dead associate left a trail so easy to follow that a child could’ve done so. That I was suddenly blessed with senses far beyond a mortal ensured that I could’ve followed their trail by the scent of blood alone as it weaved its way into the forest on the northern side of the lakes. The hills were broken and rocky but there were hundreds of tiny cliff faces and sheer drops scattered amongst the pines. It wasn’t long before I came across the darkened mouth of a tunnel hidden away in a thick copse of pines where an ancient stream had cut into the stone.

 In the darkness my vampiric nature increased, the lack of light sources suddenly allowing me the shift and weave through the shadows. Folding them unnaturally around myself like a cloak I knew I was suddenly invisible to all mortal eyes, moving across the ground almost without touching it and travelling so swiftly that only a man sprinting would have been able to match my pace. The overwhelming sense of power was intoxicating and I struggled against my own vampiric self for control, flitting through the tunnels with not even the tiniest swirl of dust from the floor or other sign of passage behind me.

 A few dozen metres into the cave lights burned from torch sconces mounted into the crudely carved stone walls. Less than a dozen metres wide and opening into a rough V shape, the tiny cavern was unremarkable except for the wooden door built into the far wall, framed by the pair of flickering torches and a pair of tapestries mounted to the ceiling. Each tapestry hung to the floor, coloured the same deep red of congealing blood and emblazoned with a stylised golden sun making its way over a horizon. It was a symbol I had seen several times since deserting the Legion and it had been on most of the cultists and the unholy books written by their master. What miniscule doubt I had was gone in the face of such symbols of the cult responsible for so much death and suffering.

 Alone and leaning back in a chair purposely designed to be uncomfortable a single robed cultist sat, leafing his way through a personal copy of one of the _Commentaries_. He was obviously not expecting any visitors or intruders and the tunnel leading to the surface had been scattered with a considerable amount of gravel in a cheap and easy method of detection. The crunching of gravel would echo through the tunnels at anyone’s approach, at least if they were mortal. I seemed to float over the ground with not a single noise announcing my presence. Between my unnatural silence the shadows concealing my movement he wasn’t even aware of my presence until it was far too late.

 Some form of instinct alerted him to danger and he looked up from his book, frowning at the darkened tunnel mouth in front of him. There was no sound on any approach, no movement in its darkened depths and he glanced around the tiny cavern for the source of his unease.

 When his head turned in the direction of the door to his left he suddenly found himself staring at the sight of something from the worst of nightmares. I was standing less than a metre from him, staring right into his eyes and snarling though a mouthful of fangs. From his point of view it must’ve appeared as though I had simply grown from the shadows, congealing into his sight in a way that no magicka or mortal art could’ve replicated. I towered over him in the gloom, a face elongated in a facsimile of a Khajiit, every tooth in my maw resembling that of a slaughterfish, muscles rippling with unworldly power and dripping with gore and river water. Sunchild’s gleaming beauty reflected the feeble torchlight where I grasped it in hands clad in shredded gloves, blackened ivory talons erupting from the flesh of my fingertips where the bones had simply chosen to grow and taper to a point. I was the stuff of nightmares even for a group of daedra worshippers.

 With a sudden, startled cry he fell away from me, throwing his book aside and tripping over onto his back as his legs tangled into those of the chair. My appearance as well as how I had appeared as though from the air itself left him shuddering with terror.

 “Where is she?” I snarled, my fang filled jaws hissing the words out threateningly.

 “W-What?”

 I stepped over and hunched down until my breath fluttered his hair and blood and water dripped onto his face.

 “ _Where... Is... She..._ ”

 I could feel myself growing drunk from the man’s fear at my unnatural appearance. “She’s inside! Preparing the initiates for the latest sacrifice!”

 My taloned hand snaked out and grabbed him by the shoulder, sinking my claws into his flesh and digging deep enough to scratch bone. His groans of terror were replaced with moans of agony as I hauled him up and slammed his back into one of the tapestries.

 “The Dark Elf you bastard!” I spat, ignoring the fact that he was scrabbling at my hand as I held him off the ground with no undue effort. “The one you and your friends just captured!”

 “The Shrine!” His wails of fear and agony were growing louder now and I suddenly found myself worrying about his fellow cultists hearing him. “She’ll be at the shrine! Ruma is going to use her as the initiate’s sacrifice!”

 Weeping he slid down the wall and I pulled my talons out of the meat of his shoulder. Blood was staining his robes now, flowing between his fingers as he tried to staunch the wounds with his good arm. The feel of the power over the man was almost as intoxicating as the taste of his blood as I absentmindedly licked it from my claws.

 “Daran!?” the door creaked open as another cultist came to investigate the disturbance. “What in oblivion’s name are you playing at?”

 The man at my feet suddenly panicked, attempting to scrabble away from me as my attention turned to his fellow cultist. “Harrow! Help me!”

 I reacted without thought, swiping away the bleeding cultist’s face with a fistful of talons and leaving him to gurgle uselessly through what remained. Both eyes, his nose, and most of his cheeks and jaw were suddenly gone from the savagery of the attack, leaving nothing more than a shattered jaw and twitching tongue as he went about dying horribly.

 The other cultist; a tall Dunmer stepped through to see the sight of a nightmare flicking away the goblets of flesh and crushed eyeballs from its talons while the ruined features of his dying comrade screamed incoherently on the floor. His shock was his undoing as I picked him up, slamming his head into the rock wall and crushing his skull like an egg. Blood and brains sprayed everywhere and the corpse slumped to the ground, leaking grey matter and arterial blood from the pulp that had once been its head.

 With the two cultists dead I sprang into action and disappeared past the door into the home of the Mythic Dawn. The vampire was in control, instinct fuelling every action as I folded the shadows around myself and raced through the tunnels. I was hunting now, not just for Viconia but also seeking death to those who had thought to capture and sacrifice us to a daedric prince. My vampiric sight allowed me to see in the darkened depths and hunt purely by the sound of beating hearts.

 Several cultists died without even knowing of the danger the darkness held. A throat was cut, another crumpled as my dagger punched in behind her ear and another died of a broken neck after I had twisted with such force that their face was left looking over their shoulders. The poorly lit tunnels and rooms became blood soaked slaughterhouses as I cut, stabbed, wrenched and tore life from everyone in my path. Some even slaked my thirst for blood as I tore throats out with my fanged maw, sucking down their blood with wild abandon even as they struggled and tried to remove themselves from my grasp. Individuals were left lying where they had died, and in what I guessed to be a barracks or sleeping quarters seven cultists died bloodily as I eviscerated with Sunchild and my bare hands. Before the last of them fell I was gone, disappearing into the shadows and leaving a trail of carnage behind me.

 Deeper and deeper into the tunnels I travelled, the crudely carved stone slowly changing into ancient stonework worn smooth by countless ages. Lit braziers and torch sconces stripped me of the protective shadows that forced me back into visibility but not reducing my lethality. Another trio of cultists died messily as I gutted the first, stabbed the second in the heart and crushed the thirds windpipe with a taloned hand all before I could draw breath. They were the last cultists between me and my destination and I had found myself in the very heart of their lair.

 Thirty metres high, over a hundred long and built by long-forgotten people the shrine of Mehrunes Dagon had been hidden in the depths of the world for millennia. Shaped like a reversed amphitheatre, the smooth stone floor from the entrance rose up sharply over a pair of raised levels where the most loyal and rewarded cultists would stand. All, no matter their position and rank would face the highest level where a raised stone block was placed at the foot of a horrific statue to their daedric lord. Fifteen metres tall, horned and horrific to behold, the statue extruded a terrible potency into the air that made me pause momentarily at its sight. All four arms were raised to the sky, an axe gripped by its upper arms as though it was swinging it down to hack the block at its feet in half. Even my vampiric nature was held aback momentarily at the sight, as whoever had chosen to create such a foul statue had nearly succeeded in emulating the terrible majesty of the Lord of Destruction.

 The Shrine however was filled with cultists, over three dozen stood at various places or on the ziggurat holding the statue. There was little ornamentation to the temple to their god, only a few handful of the same dawning sun tapestries scattered about and no seating for the dozen of more cultists standing at the shrine’s base. In the darkness I looked around warily, seeing that all but two of the Cultists were standing with their backs to me facing the statue and none had noticed the fact that three of their members were now corpses on the floor.

 One of the cultists stood before a stone dais on the highest point of the ziggurat, holding his hands aloft and staring into the sea of upturned faces with what I could only describe as holy rapture on his face. He was tall, even for an Altmer and beside him stood a young woman whose resemblance to him showed that she was his own flesh and blood. He was bare headed, high sloped forehead and sharp angled features appearing sunken and shallow in the flicking light of the braziers lighting him. Unlike the others his robes were a deep blue, edges picked out in shimmering gold thread and clasped around his waist by a belt that showed that there was no fat on his frame. With sheer force of personality alone he held their attention as he moved with all the grace of a masterful orator, each gesture and syllable perfectly chosen and timed and never once making a mistake.

 “Dawn is breaking!” he cried as he stepped forth and beheld the dozens of his followers below him. “The Dragon Throne is empty, and we hold the Amulet of Kings!”

 “Praise be!” The words rumbled forth through the scores of throats in the shrine, movement flickering as they each bowed their heads in supplication for a moment.

 “Praise be to your Brothers and Sisters! Great shall be their reward in Paradise!”

 “Praise be!” they all replied again, and I ghosted my way slowly ever closer to the turned backs of the congregation. While well-lit around the tiered layers of the ziggurat there was little light at the lower level. This allowed me to move close enough to smell the unwashed bodies of the cultists between me and their leader.

 The tall Altmer, resplendent in his blue robes raised his eyes and arms to the ceiling, the sleeves falling back to reveal forearms that were strong and free of any scarring or blemishes. “Now, hear the words of Lord Dagon! When I walk the earth again, the Faithful among you shall receive your rewards: to be set above all other Mortals Forever. As for the rest: the weak shall be winnowed. The timid shall be cast down. The mighty shall tremble at my feet and pray for pardon. Your reward, brothers and sisters: the time of cleansing draws nigh!”

 Carefully he turned and nodded to the young woman standing at his side. She gracefully lowered her head, holding out a satin cushion with the gleaming gold and ruby Amulet of Kings seated upon it. The perfection of such a jewel was marred by its proximity to the terrible sight of the statue of Mehrunes Dagon but it was comforting to see its presence after all that had occurred.

 My eyes continued searching the room and now that I was so close to the congregation I could see over their heads and the details of what lay behind their leader’s back. The stone block at the feet of the statue was sacrificial in nature, the stains of countless lives having been lost and discolouring the surface until there was no removing the traces of such gruesome acts. With sudden realisation I saw that the block was not empty; the darkened form of Viconia lay motionless upon its rough surface.

 With both the Amulet of Kings and Viconia in sight I barely heard the rest of the sermon as the darkness shifted from me and left me standing in full sight of all within the room. With their backs to me, and their leaders’ attention drawn to the Amulet no one realised that they had just gained a new spectator who’s desires and emotions were vastly different in nature.

 Mankar Camoran; leader and demagogue turned with the Amulet of Kings held aloft in both hands in a sickening display of reverence that was corrupted by his allegiance to a Daedric Lord. His mouthed words didn’t reach my ears as I was filled with a terrible bloodlust and savagery, I stepping closer to the ranked cultists and roaring on the top of my lungs.

 “Camoran!” I bellowed, saliva stained with blood from those I had feasted on spraying onto the backs of those standing in closest to me. At the shouted word he was cut off in mid-sentence, turning and casting his eyes downwards even as those on the lower level turned with rage on their faces at whoever dared interrupt their lord. Their anger turned into shock and terror at my appearance in their midst however, but Mankar Camoran and the young woman holding the pillow didn’t seem concerned or even surprised at my arrival. They did however move with an unseemly haste, Mankar pressing the Amulet to his chest in a closed fist and stepping away from the dais even as his followers reacted.

 “Kill the interloper.” The woman screamed, pointing at me with an accusing finger.

 Rushing forward the ranks of cultists mobbed me with their numbers, suicidally determined to protect their master. Most were new inductees into the order and didn’t know the rites of conjuration required to summon their daedric armour or weapons. Instead they charged, swinging fists or kicking with their feet however they could. Those more senior were suddenly encased into their black armoured robes and wielding a collection of maces and swords as they moved to surround me.

 I didn’t give them a chance, as soon as woman had started screaming I had moved, tearing the throat from one of the nearest cultists and backhanding Sunchild across another’s face that left a strip of flesh hanging. There were over thirty of them in the shrine, most unarmoured and unarmed but their numbers allowing them to contend with my vampiric nature.

 Ripping and tearing through the mass I killed until my arms were coated to the elbows in blood. My face was a blackened maw of fangs dripping blood and chunks of flesh and I roared into horrified faces as punches and blows were wasted on the metal plates of my armour or simply ducked away from. Using every skill and ability at my disposal, including the weeks of training with the Blades I cut, weaved, ducked and parried the mass of red robed cultists, cutting and slicing and punching Sunchild through flesh. I hacked off limbs, broke bones under my fists or Sunchild’s pommel and bit throats out in an orgy of destruction. Blows rang off my armour or sent spikes of pain into my mind as fists, feet and weapons struck home despite my best efforts to avoid the encroaching mass. Soon, I suddenly found myself outmatched by the sheer weight of numbers.

 Two levels above me, Mankar Camoran stood watching the bloodshed with the first traces of fear eroding his outward layer of calm. My unnatural appearance and the way I was slaughtering my way one pace at a time through his followers was filling him with enough fear that I could smell it over the coppery stink of blood and offal that I scattered about the melee. Still holding the Amulet of Kings a muscle in his cheek twitched and he turned and started muttering such words of extreme power that his lips split and began to bleed.

 Terrible and gut-wrenching, the words that he spoke were not those intended for mortal throats or for mortal ears. A few of the lesser willed cultists fell back shrieking as their ears began to bleed from the power of the incantation. Despite the damage that it was doing to his own body as he coughed and wept blood not once did he falter or mispronounce a word. In a crackle of discharged energies, a tear in reality exploded into life before him, a glowing maw of fire and devastation kin to the towering portal outside the walls of Kvatch.

 Roaring wordlessly at the sight of the leader of the cult backing away from the raging melee with the Amulet of Kings in hand I threw off the pair of cultists trying to tackle me to the ground and ripped a dagger from its sheath. Even with my enhanced speed and strength there was no way that I could cross the distance between us and stop him from getting away, so instead I reached back and threw the dagger with all of my vampiric strength behind it.

 The dagger crossed the space between us in a flicker of movement that was almost too fast for the eye to see. He stood before the portal and had turned briefly to gloat just as ten centimetres of steel punched into his blue robe and impaled a lung. The sudden look of extreme surprise and agony that crossed his features was almost enough to remove the sense of failure as he fell back with a sharp cry of pain, twisting through the burning portal and disappearing from sight. With a muted thunderclap the portal imploded, disappearing without a trace and taking not only the leader of the Mythic Dawn but the Amulet of Kings with it.

 At the disappearance of Mankar Camoran the rest of the cultists blindly surged forward once more, seeing the opportunity to stop me in the split second that my guard was down. I felt the solid thump of a body into my spine as one tackled me, another wrapping her arms around my legs from her position on the ground after losing a leg to Sunchild. Within a second I was on the ground, slipping in the viscera of a disembowelled cultist and feeling the full weight of half a dozen land on me in their unthinking ferocity.

 Punches and kicks rained down, and I tried desperately to fend them off. My right eye suddenly went dark as one punched me in the face and one of the screaming cultists had both hands around my throat as he attempted to throttle me to death. Sunchild was lost to grasping hands, and soon the constant battering was finding the softer portions of my armour and were being made felt despite the chainmail and padding covering my body.

 Using my vampiric strength and taloned hands I fought and struggled, writhing under the mass and doing everything I could to break free. A clawed digit sunk to the knuckle in an eye socket that left its owner writhing and shrieking with jelly sliding down his cheek, and another stumbled away clutching at a ruined hand while I spat out fingers. The cultist straddling my chest and attempting to strangle me screamed as I reached up with both hands and pulled down hard, clutching both sides of his head in clawed hands and sinking my teeth into his throat. With hot blood pulsating down my throat I lost all sense of the blows becoming more and more pronounced and targeted, simply digging my teeth in deeper and sucking greedily. Even when the combined efforts of the group managed to break my hold on their shrieking comrade and pry him away from my thirsting mouth I continued drinking.

 The blows kept on coming and I cowered behind my armoured forearms, attempting to protect my face from the flurry of attacks. Another cultist slammed down hard onto my chest, wailing as she threw punch after punch at my face that for the most part harmlessly bounced off my armoured vambraces. I was losing and as my vampiric strength was taxed to the breaking point I suddenly I felt my body shift and change my body in ways I never knew possible.

 Similarly to how I had wreathed myself in shadows, I felt my a strange sensation flood my limbs and torso from my core to my skin. The sensations of skin breaking under fists and feet and the gripping and pulling of those trying to grasp at my clothing suddenly fell away and I lost all sense of pressure at being trapped under a baying mob. Instead my body, clothing and armour was sucked away into itself before exploding into a mist like off a waterfall. The crowding cultists fell over themselves with surprise and confusion as I suddenly became incorporeal, travelling around and through them as a cloud before condensing into my true form at their backs and outside of the press.

 Their surprise, while short lived allowed me to regain the offensive and I tore into them with wild abandon. Arms broke, legs snapped and faces were crushed as I punched and battered my way through them with my vampiric strength. One of the armoured acolytes was thrown backwards as I kicked him in the chest with enough force that I could feel his heart explode from the power of the blow. Another dropped shrieking as I snapped a knee, before grasping her by the face and shoulder and pulling her head off with a roar of effort.

 Their numbers were dwindling now and a handful of the lesser willed individuals fled screaming into the darkness of the shrine, deeper and further away from the entrance. Those who remained fell to my assault, dying horribly as I killed and ripped souls screaming from their bodies and gorging myself on opened throats.

 Several times I exploded into mist, my strange new ability proving exceedingly useful but being joined by a second one as I found my body shift again. This time I found myself transforming into a mass of bats that chittered and squawked in the darkness, the horde of their furred bodies bearing down a pair of shrieking cultists and leaving them drained of blood. I flitted between forms, turning aside blades and attacks or shifting into mist or furred bodies that allowed killing blows to be wasted on nothing.

 It was not without a price however, and as the last of the robed and armoured cultists slid to the ground with bloody runnels for a face I was even more badly battered and wounded than before. My legs shook, arms trembling and all my strength was being thrown into not falling onto my knees or lapsing into unconsciousness. The paste on my gums had long lost its potency since being washed away in mouthfuls of blood, and pain was brought thundering back into my mind with all of its lost strength. Every bone felt cracked, bruising had erupted across my skin and there was not a part of me that wouldn’t be red-black from the haemorrhaging. A rib or two were broken, some teeth cracked and my right eye was fully swollen shut and blinded. What I had soon realised was when my body shifted into bats, any of those that were struck down or injured would transform into open, weeping wounds or other various stigmata upon returning to my true form.

 Bleeding from my injuries and caked in the blood, gore and viscera of the cult I staggered my way up the sloping stairs to the top of the ziggurat where the one of the last of them stood.

 “Where did he go?” I growled, looking into the uneasy eyes of the Altmer woman who had given the Amulet of Kings to Mankar Camoran.

 She paused for a moment, while not afraid of my unnatural appearance it was impossible not to feel some form of fear or unease after so many were left dead by my hand.

 “My father has gone to Paradise.” She said arrogantly, not letting her nervousness of my widening snarl or increasing proximity show anywhere but in her eyes. The smell of her fear though was almost intoxicating as the call of the blood in her veins.

 “Then how do I get there?”

 Her laugh was honest and completely at odd at the situation she found herself in, the sheer level of her arrogance digging away at me like a needle under a fingernail. “A _beast_ such as you will never enter Paradise. My father, and the Amulet are far from your reach.”

 Quicker than she could react I grasped her around the throat, picking her from the floor in one hand and drawing her in close enough that I could smell the lavender perfume of her flesh. “I’ll find a way. When you see him, tell him that I’m coming for him.”

 There was a moment of hope flash across her face as my grip lessened around her neck and I placed her back on her feet. Rubbing absently at the reddening mark around her porcelain neck she stared at me confusingly for a second, trying to contemplate what was going on even as I grabbed her with both hands and bit her face off.

 Still clothed in the flesh of a vampire my face was still elongated, strengthened and filled with teeth sharp enough to cut through leather. My jaw was impossibly strong and could open far wider than normal which made it simple to bite down hard enough that I sheared away a considerable portion of her cheeks, nose and lips before she could react.

 Gurgling and screaming through a ruined face all that was left was her chin and lower lip and she fell away grasping at my armoured legs in agony. Her wide open eyes jutted from a face that suddenly lacked all flesh and muscle where the bones of her skull had been scoured by the passage of my teeth. Blood sprayed and bubbled from the horrific injury, flooding her mouth even as she went about dying a drawn-out and painful death.

 Chewing slightly and swallowing I turned and walked away from Camoran’s Daughter as she died messily on the top of the ziggurat, ignoring how she tried crawling after me in desperation. For the next few short minutes I hunted down the last of the cultists where they tried to hide in the depths of the shrine. With nowhere else to go and unable to escape with me between them and the entrance they all ended up meeting their ends on the stone floor with their life-force spreading out in pools about them.

 By the time I had returned, Camoran’s daughter was well and truly dead where she had attempted to pull herself up the side of the stone dais. There was no one else left alive except for me and the unmoving body of Viconia where she lay at the statue’s feet. Only the sounds of bodily fluids leaking out of shattered corpses broke the silence as I moved over to her, kicking the dead Altmer off the edge and listening to the body smack wetly with a sick sense of satisfaction.

 Viconia was semi-conscious. The bolts having punched into her and flooding her veins with the paralytic that had left her comatose and barely awake. The shafts had been cut away but at least one that I could see still had its head lodged into her ebony flesh. I couldn’t risk trying to heal her or pulling the head out in my current state, and after such a fight I doubted I had enough mental strength to be able to control whatever restoration magicka I could draw upon. Her wounds weren’t bleeding however, which meant that the only chance that we both truly had was to get to Cheydinhal or to anyone who could help us.

 I careful bundled Viconia into my arms and began to carry her out of the death-strewn caverns and into the sun. Her weight was almost enough to topple me, and without what little vampiric strength I still had I would have easily fallen face first into the gravel road and not woken.

 Instead I concentrated solely on placing one foot in front of the other, staggering and swaying and refusing all of my body’s desires to simply lay down and sleep. For most part I strode on with heavy footfalls, dragging the bottoms of my boots in the dirt and only opening my good eye every few dozen paces to ensure I wasn’t going to stagger into a rut or off into the forests. Every step was agony and for what felt like years I plodded on aimlessly, following the track and moving towards the city a dozen kilometres away.

 After what was easily an hour of slow travel I came across a group of figures ambling down the road. From what I could see through the blurriness of my left eye there were nearly twenty of them, all clad in mismatched armour and clothing and not a single one appearing to have anything in common with the others. As they turned towards us I despaired at the thought of facing bandits, as such numbers and in my current state meant that I was incapable of offering any form of resistance.

 A towering brute of an orc, clad in heavy plate armour from the depths of his homeland strode forward with a mace over a shoulder and a collection of goblin heads hanging from his belt. Motioning for the others to stay back he strutted over, raising a hand in greeting and an eyebrow at our appearances.

 “Hi friend.” He grunted, casting an appraising eye over the two of us and appearing genuinely concerned. “You look as though you need a bit of help.”

 My laugh turned into a cough and I shrugged slightly despite Viconia’s unconscious body pressed to my chest. “You could say that.”

 Turning he gazed over the group at his back and began snapping orders. “Keld, Elidor. Get some ropes and make a pair of litters. I want some volunteers to carry them as well.”

 He gestured to a handful of individuals who signed wearily and handed over their weapons to their comrades as the Orc “ _volunteered_ ” them to help us. Soon I was able to place Viconia onto a stretcher made from a collection of ropes, a cloak off someone’s back and a small collection of spears and polearms that made the frame. Another appeared and a powerfully built Nord with a braided beard helped place me onto it.

 “We’ll get you two the Cheydinhal, don’t you worry.” The orc followed alongside my stretcher, giving a sharp whistle to the group to continue on. The stretcher-bearers grunted under our weight but soon the group of us had set off down the road.

 His tusked grin seemed massive and reminded me of a closed bear trap. “I’m Burz.”

 From my position on the makeshift stretcher I weakly shook his hand with a grip barely capable of crushing a flower. “Kaius.”

 “Good to meet you. Don’t worry about anything for now; the Fighters Guild will get you back to town.”


	10. The Fighters Guild

We found ourselves receiving the hospitality of the Cheydinhal chapter of the Fighters Guild, being carried in through the gates of the city and hustled into the guild house without ceremony. I slipped in and out of unconsciousness for the entire journey back; the jostling, swaying motion of the stretchers both calming and painful in equal measures. By the time the sun set across the city the two of us were placed in separate rooms while the guild members sent for healers from the local Mages Guild and temples. We had been lucky in how I had staggered across the party of fighters on a goblin patrol, as that region of Cheydinhal county was apparently rarely travelled and home to all sorts of unpleasant inhabitants. The greatest threat was the greenskins flooding up from the southern marshlands which had provided ample sport and contracts for the local guild who routinely received contracts to exterminate or den or another of the creatures. Burz gro-Khash was the leader of the Cheydinhal Chapter and had led the latest hunt personally which had put them in the perfect place to render Viconia and I assistance on their way back to the city.

 After he and the others left us in the capable hands of the temple priests they went about collecting their pay for the several dozen severed goblin heads they carried. Count Indarys had personally put bounties on the creatures who had been responsible for dozens of raids against farms and homesteads. This was a situation that presented the Fighters Guild excellent opportunities for coin.

 I spent the first evening blearily being assisted in undressing and removing my armour for a pair of temple acolytes to carefully wash the copious amounts of blood from my flesh. What was mine and what was from the dozens I had killed was impossible to discern but I had gained a significant amount of fresh injuries, and a new array of scars to add to the collection I seemed intent on expanding. Between the bruising, the cracked bones, broken ribs, bolt wound in my shoulder, busted eye socket and sprained wrist I was a complete mess and I felt every inch of my battered body as I was finally allowed to lay down and rest while they did they best to repair the damage.

 When morning finally broke and I was forced back into awareness I felt strong enough to stand and eat unassisted despite the best attempts from the temple healers to keep me in bed. Between the bursts of restoration magicka from the aged Altmer healer and the various salves and poultices applied liberally and almost at random across my body I was beginning to feel my usual strength and vitality again. I knew however, in the back of my mind at least that I had less to thank from the careful ministrations of healers and more from my darker nature for my faster-than-normal recovery. Even as I spooned down hot mouthfuls of porridge I could feel my bloated stomach filled with the enormous amount of blood and flesh I had consumed from the cultists in the shrine.

 Ohtesse; the healer who had been assigned to me tutted and muttered seemingly to herself as she applied a fresh layer of stinking salves to my back. Soon the vivid red-black bruising would slow begin to dull and turn yellow but for the coming days at least it would be hidden beneath a mass of bandages and poultices. Ohtesse herself was closer to her sixtieth year than her fiftieth and had spent nearly her entire life as a healer in the Cheydinhal Cathederal of Arkay. Judging by her reactions and conversations with Burz Gro-Khash she was extremely well known around the guild.

 “Mara wept!” she spluttered as she smeared another layer over my shoulder where the bolt had punched through to the other side. “Did you really think it was a good idea to rip the arrow back through with the head intact?”

 “It was a crossbow bolt, and I wasn’t in the position to be delicate.”

 “You’re lucky not to have severed any of the major nerves,” She replied, gently probing the raised scar tissues with her fingers. “or at the very least not tearing the main artery and bleeding to death.”

 “Guess I was born under the sign of the Thief.” I replied, wincing as she applied another warm bolt of restoration magicka deep into the wound.

 “I doubt it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have found yourself in this situation in the first place.”

 Heavy footfalls announced the plate armoured bulk of Burz in his orcish armour that he never seemed to take off. He walked in stuffing his face with some hunk of roasted meat and despite my lack of appetite for flesh it still smelt tantalising.

 “So doc, is he going to live?”

 “I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I’m a healer, not a surgeon.” She sighed at the obviously well-used joke. “They will both be fine but will need days of healing. Kaius here might have a few twinges and a bit of muscular atrophy but otherwise will be fine.”

 “And Viconia?” I asked, peering over my shoulder at her. The surge of unease was heavy and made itself felt in my guts.

 “She’ll sleep for the better part of today and tomorrow but once the toxins are flushed from her body and her humours are rebalanced she’ll be in better condition than what you’ll be.”

 “That’s comforting.”

 She quickly wrapped another layer of moistened bandages around my torso to ensure the salve remained damp enough to infuse with my skin and ease the bruising. “You really need to take better care of your fighters Burz. One day you aren’t going to have any left.”

 “You’d like that.” The towering orc chuckled and forced his words around a hunk of meat he had been gnawing on. “It’d make your life a lot quieter.”

 She sighed and smiled slightly. “Unfortunately too quiet. I’d be left treating sprains and the sore legs of pilgrims.” Sparing me a glance she rose to her feet and walked from the room. “Keep those bandages on for the duration of the day but once they have fully dried you can take them off and bathe. Otherwise there is little more that I can do.”

 Shifting my muscles slightly to feel the way the bandages clung to me I wrinkled my nose at the smell. “Thanks Ohtesse.”

 “Maybe you should think about a career change,” she motioned to the brute form of Burz darkening the doorway and smiled with humour. “Before this one leaves you little more than a rolled up ball of scars.”

 “Your care for your patients is commendable.” Burz was filled with humour as the two of them verbally sparred in what was obviously a long standing tradition. “Thanks for your help again.”

 “A pleasure as always.”

 As she disappeared out the door Burz closed it behind her before sitting down in the chair opposite. Grunting, he leaned back, pulling a scrap of parchment out from where he had stuffed it into his belt and handed it to me.

 “I think I’d like an explanation on why I have suddenly found myself host to the heroes of Kvatch.” He said, all traces of his humorous demeanour vanishing like a sunny sky before a storm. “Especially how they both look like they got drunk and thought it would be fun to punch Malacath in the balls.”

 The sheet of parchment was an issue of the Black Horse Courier, and the single page contained not only our names and the events at Kvatch and our closure of the Oblivion gate but also an inked image of both of our appearances. Taken by the mage I had glimpsed outside the main gate the mass-produced images had portrayed our likenesses quite accurately and providing my name to Burz when they had found us had merely confirmed our identities.

 He watched me intently as I scanned over the page, quickly reading its contents while he finished off the last of his meal. “Well?”

 I breathed heavily, looking over to him as he wiped grease off his hands onto the front of his orichalcum breastplate. “We’re both members of the Blades.”

 “Pull the other one.” He response was more humorous than disbelieving.

 “We were sent here to hunt down the group responsible for the assassination of the Emperor. Things didn’t go according to plan and we’re the only two that managed to survive.”

 “Judging by your appearances I’d use the term _survive_ lightly.” He wiped his mouth on the back of an enormous paw of a hand. “You especially should be dead I reckon. Even I wouldn’t have been able to be up and about the day after getting the shit beaten out of me like what you have. You sure you don’t have orc blood in you somewhere?”

 For a moment I involuntarily thought back to the carnage in the shrine and one of the orc cultists I had bitten the throat out of. “Not that I’m aware of.” I chuckled in an attempt of humour I didn’t feel.

 “Well I don’t see the harm in both of you staying here for the next few days at least. When word gets out that the Fighter’s Guild rescued the heroes of Kvatch we’re bound to get more contracts.” He smacked me on the shoulder with a friendly tap that with his strength rattled the teeth in my head. “So you can consider your debts with us for rescuing you and paying for healing covered at least.”

 “Spoken like a true mercenary.” I joked back, and I saw in his grin that he had decided that he liked me.

 “An orc’s gotta eat.” His grin was massive around the broken tusks and flattened nose from being broken far too many times. “Feel free to wander around and make yourself at home. Both of your armours are downstairs with the smiths, at least what bits were worth repairing and we’ve got the tailors fixing up your clothes. Should be a day or two before it’s all ready but otherwise I reckon it’ll be a week before you’re going to be able to travel further than to take a piss.”

 “We’ll try not to intrude too much. I appreciate the help, and Viconia might once she wakes up.”

 “You’re both a lot tougher than you look. Ohtesse pulled three bolts out of your friend’s chest with enough poison in her to knock _me_ on my arse and you look like you got into a wrestling match with an ogre clan. You’ll have to explain just what you were doing around here to result in such a state.”

 I rubbed at the stubble on my jaw absently, thinking hard for a moment. “I’ll have to send a message back to the boss first and find out what to do from here. What I can tell you will be up to him.”

 “Fair enough I suppose. If I find him first, I’ll send our porter up to you. He might be a tad ugly with the whole missing-a-nose thing but he’ll get you sorted. Just track me down if you need anything but otherwise your friend is in the next room down the hall.”

 With that and his curiosity satisfied for the moment he left me to finish the rest of my meal. For a while I simply sat and stared at the congealing mass of oats in the bowl with my conflicting thoughts running through my head. The last day had left me feeling shaken and I couldn’t keep the memories of what had happened in the shrine away. The sights of blood, death and such overwhelming violence made me shake with a terror that made it impossible to stand. It wasn’t the death or even how close I had come to dying myself several times during the battle but the way I had revelled in the bloodshed. There was no way for me to deny the fact that I had enjoyed every second of it, even when I was nearly dead or severely injured. The throats I had torn out, the bodies I had hacked into pieces and even Camoran’s daughter, who’s face I had _eaten_ didn’t even create the slightest remorse or pity for anything or anyone other than myself. The vampire had taken over my soul, but what concerned me more was maybe it hadn’t corrupted me but instead had released a darker side that I never knew existed.

 The Guild Porter, a grizzled veteran of many years and the wounds and scars to show for it came within minutes of Burz leaving. His face permanently disfigured from a massive gash that had claimed an eye and the hole in his face where his nose should’ve been was hidden behind a leather patch, he was terrifying enough to stop all but the most determined of thieves trying their luck on the guild coffers. Barely even saying a word to me he simply came in, handed me a few sheets of parchment, an inkwell with its wax stopper and quill and simply left again.

 Carefully, and as neatly as I could I wrote out a short missive to Jauffre, thankful that the legion ensured at everyone in its ranks knew more than just killing.

  _Jauffre,_

_Currently staying at Cheydinhal Fighter’s Guild. Viconia and myself severely injured and receiving treatment for coming days._

_ All others believed dead.  _

_MC escaped with Amulet, unable to follow. Will return once fit to travel._

_Kaius._

 With one of our last gold septims I gave the wax sealed letter to the porter and found myself seated in the room next to Viconia’s bed. There was nothing for me to do while she was still unconscious and my current health meant that I had struggled to walk the handful of metres between our rooms with a body that had since given up trying to ignore the pain. So I busied myself with reading from the handful of books in the guild and dozing in the chair next to her bed.

 She was terribly pale, skin a sickly grey that left her looking more like a Dunmer than a Drow even with her white hair. Wrapped in bandages and showing signs of the poison that had been pumped through her veins she looked strangely fragile and nothing like the tough, hard bitten companion who had travelled by my side for the past month. But she was healing, slowly compared to my unnatural nature but the collections of salves and medicines that Ohtesse and the other healers had used were soaking up the last traces of the poisons and ensuring that her wounds wouldn’t become infected.

 And so I waited, resting lightly and occasional looking over her prone body and contemplating everything that had happened. The more I thought of it the more I came to believe that it wasn’t entirely the vampire’s instincts to survive and to inflict revenge that had led me into the tunnels and caverns near Lake Arrius. I had gone in there seeking Viconia and I knew that there would have been nothing that would’ve stopped me short of death itself from getting to her.

 There was also the question of the abilities that I had used within the caverns, the ability to transform into mist and a flock of bats made me feel uneasy as I remembered the sensations. The untold power of the vampire was one thing; the ability to merge with the darkness, to explode into multitudes of separate entities and change into a cloud was quite something else entirely. I had never heard of such a thing before, even within the realms of alteration and illusion magicka and it was definitely something I had never heard of a Vampire being able to do. But as I supposed, such abilities had never been witnessed by mortals before or if they had it was likely that they were never believed or simply never survived the encounter.

 I decided that the first chance I got I would have to go and try to learn how to use my new abilities and try to gain some form of control over the beast that was consuming my soul. While effective, I didn’t want to go into a situation again where I would lose control as there would be no telling what carnage I would inflict on innocents or more especially; Viconia.

 Viconia slept for nearly the entire day, waking on occasion but never regaining full consciousness until later in the evening. She would open her eyes from time to time, look around the room confused for a few seconds before falling unconscious again. I stayed in the room for the whole day, looking over her and watching the few occasions that someone from the temple would come to check on her and change dressings.

 Dozing lightly as the afternoon deepened I leaned back in my chair, tilting it back until my shoulders were pressed into the wall and my feet were up on the table between me and the door. I had been sitting there for hours but for the moment I simply sat with my eyes closed, arms crossed across my chest and concentrating on listening to my surroundings. With a significant amount of control that left my jaws tingling I called on my new abilities and felt my hearing improve until I could hear the movement of rats in the basement, the sounds of the Fighters outside going about their practice and the multitudes of people walking the streets. I could smell baking goods from several city blocks away, and I knew that if I had opened my eyes at that point I would’ve been able to see the pair of flies buzzing around the doorframe and count their legs from my position five metres away.

 “Sleeping on the job are we?”

 The soft voice next to me broke my concentration and I felt my face relax and the tingling of my jaws and teeth fade away in an instant.

 “Just taking a nap.” I replied, turning and looking over to where Viconia still lay with her head on the pillow. She still looked distinctly unhealthy but there was no hiding the vitality that was making its way back into her features as she lay there. “It’s good to see you awake again.”

 She pushed herself up weakly, bracing her forearms under herself and groaning with the effort and pain from the wounds in her chest. Anticipating her request, I held out a mug full of fresh water which she took from my hand with the tiniest nod of gratitude.

 “How long was I asleep?”

 “The better part of two days. We were found yesterday on the way back to the city by some of the local Guildsmen and they brought us back here and sent for healers.”

 I watched as she suddenly heaved, simultaneously groaning from the pain and forcing herself not to throw up. “I thought that they had killed you.”

 “For a while there they nearly succeeded with both of us.”

 Carefully she sat up a little bit higher and clutched at the mass of bandages around her chest. Other than the salves and the cloth wrappings she wore little else and it was hard not to notice the strong, athletic body underneath the injuries and bruising. “What happened?”

 I looked around and allowed the vampire to come to the surface just enough to ensure that there wasn’t anyone in earshot. Satisfied that no one was within the vicinity I looked over to her and felt strangely guilty. “They captured you, Mankar Camoran escaped with the amulet and I may have lost control over myself."

 The silence between us dragged out painfully long as she stared ahead into nothingness. “When you say that you lost control… How exactly?”

 “I killed them all.”

 She looked over to me and stared for a moment, studying my expression and the guilt that I was obviously showing. “I don’t see that as a bad thing.”

 “It wasn’t the fact that I killed them all, but the way I did so. I ripped them apart, drank their blood and even ate their flesh.” I felt sick remembering how I had bitten Camoran’s daughter’s face off and how exquisite it had tasted as I swallowed.

 “But you got me out of there.” Conflicting emotions waged a war beneath the surface of her waxy, pale skin. “and I am thankful for that.”

 “You pulled me from Oblivion, so I think we are even now.”

 “I merely dragged you up a few flights of stairs. You came in and rescued me and managed to get me to healers. That’s… That’s a bit different.”

 She looked over the mass of bandages and the tiny spots of blood that were beginning to seep through the cloth from where her movements had reopened the wounds. “How bad was I injured?”

 “Punctured lung, broken ribs, perforated bowel, assorted internal haemorrhaging and of course a blood stream filled with enough toxins to have killed an orc.”

 The silence dragged out again and her fingers pressed lightly into her bandage covered stomach. “That explains the pain. What about you?”

 “Broken forearm, cracked ribs, a fresh hole in the shoulder, broken eye socket, internal bruising, minor haemorrhaging, and enough deep tissue bruising to ensure that walking from here to the next room over takes half an hour.”

 “You look good for it.” her voice was surprisingly honest and even held a few traces of concern.

 “Yeah, but suspiciously so. The guildsmen think that I was able to fix most of the damage with magicka before they found us.”

 “But you think differently?”

 “I know it’s not the field aid I gave myself that has left me sitting here mostly intact.” With a slightly trembling hand I gestured to my body. “I should be dead, but it’s my curse that has left me sitting here feeling pretty good all things considered while you are left bed-ridden.”

 The frown of pain that scrunched her features as she lowered herself down again made her appear terrible to behold. “From here that doesn’t seem too much like a curse. Pain might be a handmaiden to my people but there are times where it isn’t as welcome.”

 She turned her head on the pillow, hair cascading over her shoulders and covering the bed covers. “All these long months I have been on the surface I had thought that there was nothing redeeming or worthwhile to be found. I had been yet to find someone that hadn’t intended to harm or use me. Often I was attacked on sight or was instead manipulated by those who pretended friendship.”

 There was a sigh as she closed her eyes, feeling every inch of the pain that was running through her body. “You however seem to be different, and I am unable to decide whether that is a good thing or whether merely time will show your true colours.”

 “I don’t intend on harming you Viconia. Not now, or ever.”

 “So you say.” The grin that spread on her face was a combination of satisfaction and amusement. “You do have my thanks though for pulling me from that situation. It was… not pleasant to be reminded of what it is to be helpless, but for the moment I think I shall sleep again.”

 “I’ll be here.” I replied, and her eyes cracked open slightly as she regarded me with a strange expression. The smile softened for a moment and within minutes of settling into the pillow she had gone back to sleep.

 For the night I stayed by her side, resting like I had done on a handful of occasions in the various taphouses in Khuul by the expediency of resting my head on the table or by leaning back against the wall with my head jammed into the corner. Despite the pains in my body I could almost feel my flesh knitting, the bruising absorbed and bones strengthening as I sat there in the silence of the night. There was now no doubt in my mind that my curse afforded me with some degree of quickened healing and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about it. Several times during the night I woke from the restless sleep as the fighters moved about, floorboards creaking and soft voices murmuring as they staggered in at all hours from their endeavours abroad in the city.

 As morning broke over the city I was still sitting in the chair, facing the door and dozing on and off. The fighters were wholly dissimilar than the Blades or Legionaries. There was no regimented activity or schedule that was painstakingly kept to the minute. They all went to bed when they chose, rose when they chose and went about doing whatever they felt like during the day. From the sounds of grunts and clashing metal from the training yard in the back of the chapter house, some of the veterans at least knew the benefit of training and rising with the sun. Elsewhere in the chapterhouse snoring echoed, as did the occasional retching of those who had drunk too much during the night.

 Viconia slept like the dead, barely even murmuring or rolling in her sleep as the combination of her injuries and the applied salves ensured that she would spend the next few days resting. Ohtesse and one of the younger acolytes arrived shortly after the tolling of the breakfast bells to change dressings and check on us both. From their reactions they were apparently quite pleased at our progress so far.

 “I do have my concerns for your friend.” Ohtesse said, carefully wrapping the last length of cloth around my chest and securing it tightly.

 Lowering my arm, I turned and looked back at her, feeling the tightness of my shoulder slowly dissipating. “I thought you had managed to heal her injuries quite well…”

 “Her physical ailments are healing well, and in the next three days she’ll be fit to fight or even run a marathon. But they aren’t the injuries that I’m concerned with.”

 She saw my hardening gaze and breathed out deeply, motioning her unease with her hands. “She has suffered an awful amount of damage, and as far as I can discern her recent injuries are but some of the lesser wounds she has received.”

 “How do you mean?”

 “I mean that if you took all of the members of the Cheydinal guild that they might come close to the total amount of injuries she has suffered.” Quickly with her long fingers Ohtesse ticked them off. “Nearly every bone has significant stress fractures, her hands have been broken and set on several occasions, nose set uncountable times, teeth broken and repaired magically. The amount of scar tissue that covers her legs, arms and the entirety of her torso is staggering. There isn’t an inch of flesh on the poor woman that hasn’t been injured to some degree.”

 “Self-inflicted?” I asked, voice dropping to a whisper.

 “By Mara’s name no. but I know torture when I see it. She has been systematically abused with everything you can imagine. Fists, blades, whips, and everything in between. I shudder to think of what she has gone through, but it’s especially frightening to consider what damage has been done to her psyche.”

 “I have some idea already in that regards.”

 Ohtesse reached forward and patted me on my unwounded shoulder. “Whatever she has gone through has left a damaged being behind. I know just from a glance that she looks and probably is as tough as an old boot, but needs more than just my healing hands and salves to treat those wounds. She needs someone to look out for her.”

 “If the gods would stop throwing crap our way it’d be a lot easier.”

 Her smile was faint but she nodded, standing up and nodding in the direction of the door. Standing and waiting for her to finish was the guild’s porter; Rodeber.

 “Package just arrived.” He rasped, the terrible injury that had left him bereft of a nose would ensure that his voice would be nasally and wet for the rest of his life. “The messenger almost killed his horse on the front steps.”

 Thanking Ohtesse and Rodeber I took the package from his hands, feeling it’s weight and wondering why Jauffre had sent a reply in such a way. The box itself was only large enough to contain a book but was secured, wrapped in cloth and weighed a lot for its size. Carefully unwrapping and breaking the wax seal on the letter stuck to the top I quickly read its contents, feeling my gut tighten and eyes widen before making my way out of the room in search for Burz.

 The powerful orc leader of the local Guild spent his time either training, fighting or eating. Like most of his kind he enjoyed a good fight and didn’t so much care whether it was a training session against his comrades, a raid against goblins or bandits or even a tavern brawl as long as it got the blood fired up. In this case though I found him within the dining room, making a decisive campaign against several platters of food that would’ve fed a squad of legionaries for a day.

 “Mornin’.” He rumbled through a mouthful of roast boar, washing it down with a mouthful of some potent alcohol and motioning for me to sit.

 “Morning.” I placed the box down in front of me and ripped a leg of chicken off one of his plates, my hunger finally starting to make itself felt above how much blood I had drunk. “Do you have any commanders or seconds in command that you think should know about what’s going on?”

 Pausing in mid bite he stared at me with a look of astonishment. “Story time is it?”

 At seeing my nod he turned and whistled loudly, a somewhat impressive feat for someone who had a pair of tusks permanently jutting through his lips.

 Waiting for a few minutes a pair of hulking fighters appeared from the rest of the chapterhouse. The first, the hulking Nord that I had seen when they had found us stepped in through a doorway that seemed too small to contain his bulk. Another entered just shortly after he did, a tall whip-thin altmer with a face full of scars and a hands missing a few fingers from one too many close calls.

 “This is Keld and Ohtimbar. They are both my seconds in command.” Burz rolled his powerful neck muscles and looked at me with renewed interest, glancing between my face and the box sitting in front of me. “I’m guessing you’ve been told how much you can tell us.”

 “The Blades apparently trust you all enough for me to tell you the whole story.” My reply got their attention immediately and for the next half an hour the three of them stared at me with stupefied expressions on my face as I told them everything that had happened since the Emperor’s death. For the trio of hard-bitten warriors to stand there in utter shock after I had finished explaining the destruction of the Mythic Dawn’s Shrine at Lake Arrius was a little terrifying to say the least.

 “Malacath’s hairy nutsack.” Burz gro-Khash spluttered after I had finished, looking down at the flagon grasped in his massive fist and only just realising that he had held it for the entire time I spoke. “Well, that sure as shit explains what brought you here but why do you need us?”

 “There are no Blades left nearby who can come and secure the Shrine for at least a week, maybe more and who knows what will happen before then. We need a group of experienced fighters to hold it in the meantime.”

 “We don’t work for free.” Keld growled, scowling and shaking his head so that his braided beard quivered.

 “That’s why they have allowed me to provide suitable compensation for your assistance.” I pushed the box over to them and watched as their jaws hit the floor at the sight of several hundred gold septims. It was more than an entire month’s of goblin hunting sitting before them.

 “We’ll, you lot definitely don’t like screwing around.” Ohtimbar replied this time, a tiny stream of gold falling from his fist back into the box. “We can’t give up our current contracts though.”

 “I know that, and you know that.” Leaning back in his chair and necking another frothy mouthful of alcohol Burz scratched his jaw absently. “Some of them though can be postponed for a short while at least. There’ll be enough warm bodies spare to go get this place locked down.”

 “There will be higher injuries among the hunters.”

 “Doesn’t matter. We have enough gold here to even get Rodeber laid. The boys will just have to suck it up.” He looked over to me and nodded. “Looks like we’re at your service. I’m guessing that you’ll want us there immediately?”

 “The sooner the better, yes.”

 “Well then, as you were able to make it down here on your own two legs I suppose that you’d be able to show us where this place is at least.”

 “That is part of the plan.” I replied, feeling somewhat concerned that I would have to leave Viconia behind for even a few hours.

 We quickly prepared for the short journey, Burz and his two lieutenants going around and mustering whatever members they came across until a full twelve of them were armouring and readying themselves for anything. My own equipment and weapons were brought, the few that weren’t irreparably ruined by the fighting in the caverns in any case. I couldn’t help but feel somewhat uneasy at the fact that my chainmail now sported several obvious holes where the bolts had broken through the interwoven links. The breastplate was ruined and would need to be reforged before it could be of any use but Sunchild was as always perfect and unblemished despite the dozens I had killed on its edge.

 Viconia was awake when I made my way back to her room, taking the attentions of Ohtesse and her assistant with ill grace and slapping at their hands. She saw how I wore my leather and chainmail and Sunchild’s presence at my hip, her eyes darkening for a moment and fear briefly making itself felt.

 “Jauffre has asked that the Fighters Guild guards the shrine until more Blades can come and secure it.” I said simply, seeing her face darkening not in anger at me but at the weakness of her body and inability to follow. “I’m leading them there but I will come straight back.”

 Her scowl was vicious but it wasn’t directed at me. “Make sure you retrieve my sword.” She said simply as I left the room to join the rest of the fighters.

 Burz, Keld of the Isles and twelve other heavily armed and armoured fighters followed me into the light, retrieving horses from the stables outside the city gates and making our way to the north. We spared no time, making all haste as I led the party to the caverns and home to the Mythic Dawn. For the entire journey I rode in silence, feeling my fear and uncertainty at not only what we would find but trying to come up with reasonable excuses how I had slaughtered several score of the cultists on my own. It was an uncertainty and unease that I could not shake even as we found ourselves stepping into the darkened tunnel with a trio of fighters leading the way with torches.

 It was not long before we started following the trail of bloodshed and death that I had strewn through the tunnels, and my fears of discovery or at a minimum of answering difficult questions were lessened somewhat. In the hours since I had left with Viconia in my arms the caverns had turned into the home of scavengers following the scents of blood and death. Skeevers, and other Cyrodiilic rodents swarmed through the tunnels, their sounds of their chittering and squeaking announcing the sheer numbers of the vermin as they streamed away from our burning torches in a roiling tide of furred bodies. Some of the larger ones attacked the lead fighters in their blood-frenzy but were simply swatted down without pause by the veterans.

 Most of the corpses we came across were already in various states of decay or had been feasted upon by the swarm of vermin. All of the bodies I was thankful to see were unrecognisable, their bloated, putrid forms with flesh stripped in places ensuring that the fighters were unable to determine the exact nature of their deaths.

 They were however increasingly awestruck by the sheer quantity of cultists I had slew, stepping around and over the bodies of the dead and clearing each and every corridor and room with an experienced ease. It took a relatively short time to clear every nook and cranny of the shrine, relighting braziers and torches as they went and herding the masses of rats into the cracks from where they had crawled from.

 The fighters effectively cleared the entire series of caverns and caves, and I followed behind ensuring that I stayed out of their way. Dozens of storerooms were scattered throughout the caverns, as well as numerous sleeping areas where dozens of beds lined the walls and dining rooms and areas set aside for preparing food. As far as we could tell the entire place had been designed to comfortably sustain a group of over a hundred or more, perhaps more if they were crammed in and slept in shifts. It was not a comforting through that a large majority of the rooms appeared as though they had not been lived in for months, which suggested that the majority of the cult no longer lived and operated from this area.

 Other rooms were found that seemed to answer some questions, but created several more in their place. Several printing presses were found with significant stocks of resources for mass production of the accursed _Commentaries_ , and another storeroom seemed to be filled with dozens of packing crates. Upon being forced open all of these crates appeared to contain nothing more than collections of gleaming obsidian spheres packed in straw. Adjacent to this particular storeroom was an even greater mystery; a pair of rooms, perfectly hewn from the rock with white tiles covering every inch of the walls and perfectly black tiles across the floors. There was nothing of note in these rooms other than a single table in the exact centre, a simple dish sitting on it and the smell of potent alcohol filling the air to such extent that a few minutes inside was enough to make me feel dizzy. Burz was the one who noticed that the doors to these rooms had been built to the same precise specifications. Not only were the interior of the doors covered with the white tiles as well, but when they closed a combination of their exact dimensions and the layer of vellum around the edges ensured that they sealed with no airflow.

 For what purposes these rooms served would remain a mystery for the time being, and I soon found myself leading Burz towards the central shrine. The base of the towering ziggurat was a slaughterhouse of the dead, and even Burz was stopped in mid step at the sight of so many corpses.

 “How in oblivion did you manage this?” Burz murmured as he simply strode through the bodies with the sounds of breaking bones and squelching of organs echoing through the space. He had no fear of death and barely even glanced at the remains where some of the other fighters hung back looking distinctly pale and sick.

 “Nearly all of them were unarmed, and none were trained or able warriors.” I made my way up the stairs, picking through the human refuse and ignoring the faceless corpse that had been stripped of nearly all of her flesh from gnawing fangs.

 “Still…” he seemed suspicious for a moment, before shrugging and following me up the stairs. He had decided that the answers to his questions were probably not ones he really wanted to know.

 The rest of the group scattered through the rooms and corridors, searching and securing as they went. I returned to the sacrificial stone, seeing scattered about it a handful of Viconia’s effects and retrieving the gleaming Dragonbane from where it lay in amongst the ancient bloodstains.

 “Well this is going to be boring. You didn’t leave anyone for us.” Barz looked somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t been able to put his mace to use.

 “I don’t like doing things half-arsed.”

 He laughed at that, watching as I slid the ebony and silver scabbard into my belt and making to return back down the stairs.

 As I went to step back down the stairs I stopped, looking over to the stone dais where Mankar Camoran had been delivering his sermon and laying eyes on the massive tome sitting on top of it. It was a hideous thing, wrapped in what could only be human skin and daubed in horrific runes that seemed to twist and writhe of their own accord. The sheer throbbing power of such a book was easy to see, and I knew that this could only be the _Mysterium Xarxes_ ; the fell writings of Mehrunes Dagon.

 Carefully I wrapped it in a torn strip of tapestry that I clawed from the walls, feeling the horrid sensation of the book even through the fabric. It squirmed in my grasp, feeling disgustingly alive even as I pushed it into my pack.

 “Think you can handle it from here?” I asked the orc as he watched me wrap up the loathsome thing.

 “It’s a babysitting duty, and I just realised that I didn’t bring any ale.” He nodded once and clapped me on the back. “We’ll be fine until the Blades rock up. Best be getting you back to Cheydinhal and that pretty friend of yours I suppose.”

 Returning to Cheydinhall I was glad to have found myself in the strangely cosy walls of the Fighters Guild chapterhouse. The ride to and from the caverns was shorter than the time it would have taken to march that distance on foot and Barz kept me company for the return. Twelve veteran fighters would be more than capable of fending off any serious assault for the foreseeable and while they begrudged the boring nature of the task they were not going to complain about the serious amount of septims they had gained for such an easy contract.

 Barz and I chatted on the way back, telling each other brief stories of past adventures as I attempted to take my mind off the fact that I was aggravating all my wounds again. He knew how much I was hurting and the pace on horseback was only barely faster than walking pace which was a fact I was exceedingly thankful for. The stories that he told were a mixture of side-splitting hilarity and sober tales of friends long lost to the flames of battle. I soon discovered that Cheydinhal was the only chapterhouse that was doing well for itself in Cyrodiil. The tides of change and luck were not providing the guild with well-paying contracts and soon many of those who would normally be members had moved on; either leaving Cyrodiil entirely or taking up arms amongst the competition. The Blackwood Company in the south was making its presence felt by undercutting contracts and elsewhere the growing unrest throughout the lands seemed to be bringing out every sell-sword and retired legionary to be hired as guards or muscle instead of their patrons seeking out the services of the guild. Cheydinhal was lucky for the time being that the Count’s bounty on any goblin heads delivered had allowed the guild to gain something of a monopoly but it wouldn’t be long before competition would arrive.

 Viconia’s face alighted when I returned, which appeared to be a combination of my appearance and the fact that Dragonbane returned to her possession once more. We sat together in the darkening afternoon, talking for a while and having naps several times until night finally fell before I retired to my own room for a proper night’s sleep. It would be several days before she would be healthy enough to travel and in that time at least we took the opportunity to rest while we could.

 Recovering our strength would take days, and in Viconia’s case possibly even weeks before we were fully fighting fit once more. My curse soon left me healed a lot sooner, but the massive amount of bruising would cover my body in the sickly yellow-black stains for a while to come. I spent my days mostly by Viconia’s side as she gradually forced her unwilling body to haul itself out of bed and start down the faster road of recovery paved by spite and determination. A few rare times I wandered through the city, restocking what equipment and supplies we could afford with the last of our coins but it soon became obvious that one way or another we would have to return to Cloud Ruler soon.

 With Viconia still not able to travel the distance between Cheydinhal and the home of the Blades it was her suggestion that I assist the local Guildsmen and fulfil some contracts. While the pay would be measly, it would be enough to get us the few items we needed and would at least keep me busy instead of, in her words; “ _dotting about her like she was a sick pet_ ”.

 Burz gro-Khash seemed pleased at the offer of the assistance, making me a ‘temporary’ associate of the Guild and sending me on a handful of missions. Between the handful of weapons deliveries and the couple of goblin patrols that I joined I soon received at least enough septims to replenish our supplies and equipment and finally allow me to regain a new bow. On that I hoped I would be able to hold onto for longer than a few weeks.

 By the time a week had passed Viconia had healed enough to be able to climb into a saddle once more and walk, albeit stiffly for further than the front doors of the guild. I could see the pain and disgust that she held herself in for such weakness, and I knew that being so helpless was eating away at her in ways that she would never show to another soul. But as soon as she was able to ride I knew that it was time for us to leave the county and return with the news of our failure and the fate of the Amulet of Kings.

 Thirteen days after arriving at Cheydinhall and the ambush at the Lake we once more mounted our horses set off for our return to Cloud Ruler Temple. Barz and several of the other fighters escorted us to the stables where our mounts had been well cared for during their stay and most genuinely seemed sorry to see us leave. My few patrols and the general assistance I had provided them leaving a lasting impression with the handful I had worked alongside. Viconia was still very much an enigma to them but as they were all tough and experienced warriors they respected her highly and despite spending most of the fortnight bedridden they could see her determination not to simply lay down and wait. The few times that she had managed to sneak out of her room she had been caught training, forcing herself to practice with her sword and exercising until he wounds began to split and bleed once more. The members of the guild had no illusions about her effectiveness in battle and knew a dangerous adversary when they saw one.

 Bidding our farewells we made our way to the west, following the highways in the direction of the towering heights of the Imperial City and White Gold Tower visible many dozens of kilometres away. Each night we made camp alongside the road the times we were unable to make it to a coaching house, village or inn. Despite Viconia’s complaints of not needing such comfort and the awareness of our dwindling money I still ensured that every opportunity possible she was able to rest in a real bed rather than the hard ground. Each time I would mostly ignore her complaints of wasting valuable money or forcing her to give in to weakness, but I did detect the slight traces of gratitude when she retired for the night in a room. The two nights we stayed indoors I ended up sleeping with my head on a table or retiring to the piles of hay in the stables to rest as best as I could.

 On one such night I learned even more about my growing vampiric powers, deciding to try to slake my growing thirst before I lost control over it. It had been over a week since my gluttonous feasting in the Mythic Dawn’s Shrine and while I believed I could have held off for a day or two more I was not willing to take the chance. So, in the darkness of the stables as I listened to the drunken singing of the coaching inn’s patrons grow in volume I stalked the young stable hand as she went about blowing out the handful of lanterns on the walls. She moved carefully, not at all alarmed or aware of my presence in the deepening gloom behind her as she carefully opened each lantern in turn, blowing out the candle within and ensuring that the horses were secure for the evening.

 As the last flickering light fluttered and died she turned around and went to make her way out the door but stopped in midstride, staring uncomprehendingly into the darkness where I stood with less than a metre between us. The vampire had surfaced and I was struggling to control its primal urges as we looked into each other’s eyes. To her I would have been nothing more than a hint of a shadow, a frightening suggestion of something terrible that remained elusive to her sight even as she leaned forward to gain a better look.

 I could feel her distress growing, the desire to run and flee into the light and safety that the tavern a dozen metres away offered. The smell of her growing fear was potent and stronger than alcohol to my mind as I breathed it in, but as I carefully moved closer to her I could feel that fear dimming. My mind seemed to worm out of my eyes and into her own, clouding her thoughts and quelling the throbbing fear that clutched at her chest. As I shifted myself out of the folds of darkness encasing me there was none of the usual fear and terror that my appearance had solicited over the previous weeks. Other than the way that her heart suddenly started beating harder there was nothing to show on her face as she finally managed to catch a glimpse of my features. The smell of her fear was powerful as she gazed at the tightened skin of my face, the glints of my pointed incisors and the way that the bones of my face were contorted in an unnatural way but there was no cry for help or scream of fear.

 Instead there was a soft sigh as my clawed hand reached out and caressed the side of her face, allowing me to feel the shudder of disgust and arousal ripple through her body. With nothing more than my willpower I held her there in my gaze, drawing her closer and carefully moving us into a nearby portion of the stable where no horse had been placed for the evening.

 She was wholly under my control now, and there was no resistance as I lowered her into the hay and gently held her by the hip and the back of a neck in a foul parody of a lover’s embrace. I could feel her youth and humble beauty under my palms, feeling her writhe under my bodyweight even as I pressed her into the hay and ran my lips slightly up the side of her neck. With my breath on her throat I could feel the sudden unnatural desire for me increase until her own hands were running up my armoured spine, feeling the hundreds of chainmail links and the leather straps holding the metal plates covering my arms together. Carefully my tongue snaked out, tracing the vein of her throat and feeling the tiny goose bumps prickle her skin even as I opened my jaw and sunk my fangs into her.

 The feel of the sudden intrusion made her twist in my grasp, groaning slightly as she gripped the back of my head with something approaching pleasure. There was no desire for her body within my mind even as she writhed like a lover under me as I gulped down her coppery blood with the utmost satisfaction. I could feel her heart racing and the growing shudders as it began to flutter and weaken. Before I had fully drunk my fill and especially before I had drunk too much from her I pulled away, pressing my fingers to the tiny holes in her throat and quickly calling on a tiny portion of my willpower to seal them with a burst of magicka.

 Carefully and with my enhanced sight I looked over her, ensuring that there were no traces of my feeding, leaving nothing more than a pair of tiny pink bumps that would fade over the coming days. So miniscule were the wounds that they would be mistaken for fleabites and as I helped her to her feet I somehow knew that my will over her would leave little memory of what had occurred in her mind. She would be lightheaded and weary for the coming days, but I also knew that what fuzzy fragments she would recollect would lead her to believe that she had had some form of intimate liaison with a stranger in the night.

 She made her way back out of the stable, wandering confusingly for a handful of paces as my control fell away. For what appeared to be an age she stood in the night, staring up at the tavern with a lack of comprehension about what had happened before she shook herself as though waking from a dream and returned to the light. I stood in the shadows, once again invisible and feeling the vampire return to the depths of my soul. For several minutes I stood there with my toes at the border between the dark depths of the stable and the flickering light coming from the tavern, waiting as the last vestiges of the beast had left me as a man once more.

 There was no one in sight as I collapsed into the hay, my anguish at what I had become forcing me to hunch over with fists pressed to my temples, crying and dry heaving until sleep finally took me.


	11. Cloud Ruler

While relatively short, the journey back to Cloud Ruler passed without incident and we found ourselves glad to be within the towering walls once more. The entire fortress was bustling with activity now and everywhere we looked, dozens of Blades practiced, manned the walls or went about the tasks required to keep such a place maintained. There was easily a hundred of them filling the halls of the fortress, and nearly all were armoured in some form. Members of every race were present and were a considerable fighting force who were not willing to let the last heir to the throne die like his father and half-brothers.

 A handful of familiar faces met us as we led our horses through the gates and up the rising staircase to the fortress’s upper level. Belisarius was there, lightly sweating from his latest training session despite the increasingly frigid temperatures that left the breath fuming into the air. I could see his unease at the mottled bruising that was visible under my armour and the handful of light furs I had managed to procure for myself and Viconia to ward off the cold. They must have heard of what happened to us over the previous month but our appearances spoke more than what rumours ever could.

 I slid out of the saddle with my usual infantryman’s grace and felt my spine crunch as I leaned back and straightened it out. Viconia was saddle-sore and weary, her wounds taking a toll despite how well they had healed so far. With a handful of greetings to a few of the Blades that I recognised I walked over to her, holding out a hand in assistance as she stiffy tried to climb out of the saddle. For a moment she glared at my offered hand like it was a venomous reptile, before visibly swallowing her pride and allowing me to help her clamber down.

 “We had heard of what happened.” Belisarius said simply after he greeted us properly. There was concern and grief written in his features not only at our appearances but at the loss of several of the Order. “It is good to see you both.”

 His friendly pat on the shoulder spoke volumes of how he felt, but he didn’t let his emotions stand in the way of his duty. Carefully he and some of the others led us into the warmth of the great hall while our horses were led away and cared for in the stable.

 Feeling the sudden bloom of heat wash across our flesh was a pleasant sensation as our shivering from exposure began to lessen. The enchanted fire was roaring somewhat larger than the last time we were in the hall due to the grip of winter beginning to tighten on the region. We busied ourselves with warming up in its glow, shedding some of our access equipment and armour even as the doors to the living quarters opened and Jauffre appeared. He was dressed almost as though he was within the comfortable walls of the priory, a billowing set of brown robes that flowed around him as he moved and a lit pipe full of tobacco puffing with every breath. It was obvious that his sleeping patterns hadn’t changed since our departure but he genuinely appeared pleased to see the both of us.

 “Viconia, Kaius, it is good to see you both again.”

 “Likewise.” My own unease of not knowing how to exactly address this elderly spy was blindingly obvious to anyone watching.

 “You look like you have both been into Oblivion again.” the concern on his face appeared honest as he glanced over us, noting the extensive bruising and the way we carried ourselves with obvious pain.

 “Oblivion could’ve been a vacation compared to that.” Viconia’s own voice was tinged with bitterness and I grimaced inwardly at the tone.

 “I can imagine.” For a moment he glanced between the both of us, taking a deep puff of his pipe before motioning towards the living quarters. “If you wish, we can wait until tomorrow after you have had a chance to rest from the journey.”

 The snap of irritation in Viconia’s voice was sharp and barbed like an arrow. “We’ll be fine. We can rest later.”

 The sound of a door opening and the sudden draft of mountain air sent shivers up my spine. Martin’s exclamation and call of greeting however was more than welcome. With a mild clap of welcome over the shoulder he and the rest of us walked over to the fire and the seats arrayed before it, placing ourselves in them with pleasure at the first real comfort in days.

 “So,” Jauffre said softly as we settled into the chairs. “what happened?”

 Carefully, and precisely Viconia and I told Jauffre, Martin and two of the senior commanders of the Blades what had occurred. We spoke of the ambush, the way they had meant to capture the two of us alive as sacrifices and the disappearance of the Blades who were meant to meet us there. I told a variation of the truth of how I had managed to survive the fall over the cliff and how I had managed to infiltrate the caverns, as admitting the truth was not something that I could bring myself to do even if it didn’t result in death. To them they simply believed that I had silently killed my way through their ranks with stealth and surprise and when I did finally have to fight I was faced with an array of unarmed cultists ill prepared to face a fully armoured and experienced fighter.

 “If I hadn’t had known that you two had managed to step inside Oblivion I would have never had believed you could kill an entire cult on your own.” Martin finally said once we had finished describing how we had spent the past fortnight with the Fighters Guild recovering. He glanced at Jauffre. “What was the total?”

 “The report I received of took into account that some of them were in _pieces_...” there was the tiniest hint of suspicion in Jauffre’s eyes as he gazed at me. “but Jena said that there was at least forty-two dead.”

 The moment of silence seemed to stretch into eternity as one of the Blades seated near us choked at the number, and they were all staring at us with renewed respect.

 “But Mankar Camoran escaped.” Martin said simply, and the sense of failure was almost too much to bear.

 I nodded. “Yes. And he took the Amulet with him.”

 “How did he manage to escape in the first place? I can’t fault your efficiency but I don’t think he simply slipped by you and ran in the chaos.”

 “No, he didn’t.” they all watched as I rummaged in my pack, feeling the horrid weight in the bottom wrapped in its layers of torn cloth and leather. “He used this and some form of conjuration to create a brief-lived oblivion portal.”

 Both the Blade Commanders and Jauffre involuntarily twitched and pulled away slightly as I uncovered the rune-encrusted book. The sheer malevolency of the bound leather tome was a sickening force in the stomach and staring at it for any more than a glance was enough to start inducing a headache.

 Martin swore with such potent and violent force that we all turned to look at him, shocked at the softly spoken priest and the words that no man of the cloth had ever uttered. “The _Mysterium Xarxes_ … You have been carrying around one of a handful of daedric artefacts; the most powerful and _evil_ objects in existence in your backpack? _Like it was a change of clothes?!_ ”

 “Well I didn’t have much else of an option, and it’s not like this is something you can send by messenger.” I replied a little too bluntly, seeing his hardening but haunted expression soften at my rudeness.

 “I’m sorry.” There was pain in his eyes as he struggled not to look at the loathsome thing sitting before us. “You were right in bringing this to us my friend, but this book is of such great evil that even being in its presence is a danger beyond comprehending.”

 “You seem to know a lot about these sort of things.” There was a steel like edge to Jauffre’s voice now, and I suddenly felt a memory drag itself to the surface of my mind of when Viconia and I had first met him at Kvatch.

 “You’ve had experience with Daedra before.” I said softly, seeing the look of horror cross his face and knowing that I was right.

 “I haven’t always been a priest…” he closed his eyes for a moment and there was sorrow and self-loathing in them when they reopened. “In my youth I had followed a much darker path.”

 “No wonder you looked so terrified at the thought of the Blades coming for you.” Viconia’s own voice had a hard edge to it as she looked him over.

 Lightly with a hand to the shoulder Jauffre reassured him and took a few more puffs of his pipe. “Maybe that was by design of the Nine, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t think any of us are in the position to judge.”

 Martin laughed, but there was no humour in it. It was a laugh at one who believed himself the target for some kind of sick joke. “It doesn’t matter though. What does matter is that somehow in this situation we have found the best and possibly _only_ way of finding that insane bastard and retrieving the amulet. On top of this I just happen to be the only one with the experience to use this _thing.”_

 “How do you mean?”

 He looked over to me, grimacing at the challenge that laid before him. “Baurus returned a little over a week ago and brought his copies of the _Commentaries_ with him. I have read enough of Camoran’s writings to know that has his own little home-away-from-home jammed into the depths of Oblivion. It seems that is where he has most likely escaped to and unless we can find a way to kick in the front door, he’s effectively out of our reach.”

 “How long will it take to find a way in?”

 For several moments he tried to estimate it in his head, before giving up and shrugging. “I… I don’t know. Weeks? Months even? I’ll have to come up with a way to protect not only myself but everyone here from the mere act of opening it. I’d then have to read it, translate or decipher whatever is inside and use what little we know to come up with a method of breaching oblivion.”

 Viconia looked distinctly uneasy as she tore her eyes from the writhing symbols and runes that swirled impossibly on the surface of the book. “There’s bound to be some form of ritual which will require ingredients and other collected items. Which doesn’t include the considerable amount of preparation required before anything can commence.

 She shrugged as we all looked at her, yet again reminded that she had considerable experience with the darker side of magicka.

 “So in the meantime we are stuck waiting and hoping.”

 Martin nodded, unhappy at the prospect. “I guess so. The hourglass is draining and sooner or later the barriers will break and we will have lost no matter what.”

 “You will not be doing this alone.” Jauffre said quietly, looking at Martin and gesturing to the rest of us with his pipe. “You have the full support of the Blades and these two here are proving to be extremely capable. Whatever you need we will get.”

 For the coming days Viconia and I found ourselves in our all-too-familiar routines as we settled back into the comfortable schedule of the Blades. We would rise with the dawn, having breakfasts and gradually easing into training for most hours of the day. Our armour and equipment, while patched by the Fighters Guild still required several repairs and the fortress’s collection of smiths began the arduous process of repairing chainmail and battered plate. Sunchild and Dragonbane however remained by our sides or in our hands as we trained against the members of the Blades, or on occasion against each other. Viconia was determined to regain her lost strength and health and pushed herself to breaking point every day until the last remnants of her weakness were removed from her flesh.

 I returned to my sparring sessions and teaching under Belisarius, using his peerless skill with a sword to constantly learn and strive for my own improvement and understanding of my own abilities. It was obvious that I was improving and learning with every day and every session we sparred but I had a long time and an enormous amount of practice and learning ahead of me to match his skill.

 After three days an increase of messages and supplies arriving was noticed by us all, especially the one occurrence of a wagon being brought up to the gates. A small number of Blades unloaded it, carrying the cargo carefully into the depths of the fortress with no hint of their contents to any of the curious onlookers. The fortress was slowly growing into a hub of activity and I barely had time to spend with Martin as I had the previous stay. He busied himself in reading dozens of tomes regarding the arcane and mystical, poring through the collected writings of the Empire in the search of the answers we all sought.

 My time with Viconia however was increasing and as she healed we found ourselves in each other’s company more regularly. Sometimes we would simply sit or eat near each other, not talking or conversing but merely staying in each other’s presence. Other times we would spar or train among the Blades, versing each other in the art of swordplay and on one occasion pitting our bodies against each other in a brief bout of unarmed practice. Even unarmed and without the use of magic she was a deadly foe, one that I could only briefly hold my own against with what legion skills I had been taught and without the use of my vampiric strength and abilities.

 For the evenings we seemed to either spend time together, walking the walls or spending time in the great hall. A large amount of time we would sit for hours discussing everything that came to mind. I did find myself spending more and more time within the Fortress’ library, pulling specific tomes and scrolls from their shelves and reading through them one after another. For the most part my table would have a dozen or more books piled about it as I delved into ancient writings but except for the most prying of eyes no one noticed that I was only reading from those regarding vampires.

 One such evening I was reading my way through a book that was somewhat thinner than those surrounding it. The hour was late and almost all the Blades had retired for the evening but I still found myself reading through the book’s contents. Lit by nothing more than the handful of torches scattered above the walls and heated by drafts from the fireplace of the great hall the Library was surprisingly comfortable even with the deepening chill of mid-autumn making itself felt. For the moment I was alone, all others heading to their beds or to their various guard duties and even Martin had vanished from behind the ever-increasing stack of research materials.

 Viconia entered the room, dressed in little more than the set of robes no different from the others worn by the Blades. Even the cheap fabric did little to hide the feminine curves and elegant beauty underneath.

 “Did you find something interesting abbil?”

 “In a way.” She seemed to glide over the stonework tiles with a lithe ease that few could ever replicate. Most times I knew that she only made a sound when she chose to.

 An eyebrow arched and she slid into a seat adjacent to me, lifting up the book from where it lay opened on the table in front of me and glancing at the cover. “ _A treatise on Porphyic Hemophillia, Sanguinare Vampiris and the Undead_.” Her quizzical expression didn’t change. “Sounds interesting...”

 Involuntarily I glanced around the room, looking not just with my eyes but with my enhanced senses to ensure we were alone. “I’m trying to learn more about myself.”

 Leaning back in her chair she placed her feet  up on the table, not even sparing a glance to the couple of books she knocked off in the process. “And are you succeeding?”

 “Not really.”

 She plucked the book from the table and ignored any complaint that I might have made while glancing over the pages. Looking confused, her eyes furrowed as she tried to read the script. “What is this?”

 “Ancient Cyrodillic.” Her expression didn’t change as she stared at me with her cold yellow eyes that so reminded me of a wolf. “ _D_ _ominari in homines non timent_ _._ Loosely translates to: _Do not fear the pawns of the dominator_.”

“And you can read this?”

 “Some. This particular book is so old I can only understand one in every three words but it’s proving to be enough.”

 Her face was impassive and for a moment I could feel the strange clenching in my stomach as I stared at her beauty. “So, tell me some.”

 My mind failed to hold a thought for a few moments as she sat further back in her chair, flicking some hair over a shoulder and giving me a rare smile that always seemed to make me feel breathless.

 “Well, very roughly translated this book goes into details of how to face and defeat vampires. Their weaknesses, ways to kill them and so forth. Most is baseless superstition, such as having to cut off a vampire’s head, stuff its mouth with rose petals and nightshade and bury them face down at a crossroads.”

 “Sounds specific and effective.”

 “It is but it is totally useless and impossible to do in reality.”

 “How so?”

 I shrugged and motioned to the small pile of other books. “All these other books on the subject, along with the fact that I killed the one that bit me proves that when a vampire dies there is little more than ash and bone left afterwards. Whether it be by exposure to the sun or death in combat a vampire’s corpse rapidly combusts and burns from within.”

 There was a moment of silence between us as I remembered the way that when the fiend who had fed on me had burned after he finally died in the shadows of the cave. Its flesh seemed to smoulder before flaring into a consuming conflagration that left nothing more than blackened bones and white-grey ash behind. The unpleasant memory of the smell and taste caught in the back of my throat and I felt strangely nauseous.

 “Anyone or anything that you killed that didn’t burn immediately means that they weren’t a vampire. In fact, it used to be an old test to determine whether a person was infected or not. If they burned after they died then they were a vampire, if they didn’t then they were free of infection and their souls would go on to reside in Atherius.”

 Viconia’s smile didn’t change but the expression somehow turned darker. “There seems to be a lot of times that the surface is not so dissimilar from the Underdark.”

 “I’m not so sure that is a good thing.” My tone was light but my expression wasn’t. “The nature of vampires is fascinating but there are so many questions left unanswered.”

 “Such as?”

 I pulled a coin from a pouch and held it out for her to see. The gleaming silver piece caught the light as I flicked it into the air before catching it in a fist. For a moment I sat there, keeping my face passive and neutral before opening my hand and showing her the livid red burn where the coin had imprinted itself into my palm.

 “Silver is a weakness to vampires, and other forms of unholy creatures and the undead.” I said simply, seeing her eyes study the way the burn seemed to fade into nothingness in the seconds after I returned the coin to its pouch. “Other weaknesses described are garlic, holy places and sunlight but there are some that are little more than flights of fancy or straws for the desperate to grasp onto.”

 “Sunlight doesn’t affect you.”

 “Obviously, but I don’t think that it’s because legends and stories are untrue. My first feeding was of a dremora and there are no writings describing such a situation before. The first feeding is the most important as it is when the infected being becomes a true vampire and it has to be against another humanoid creature. Whether it’s man, mer or beastfolk it doesn’t matter but feeding on animals doesn’t trigger the change.”

 “And so you think that because you drank the blood of a daedra it has changed you somehow?”

 “I know that it has. I believe that it is the reason why I’m able to walk in sunlight and the differences in how I look and act when I lose control. I might feel uneasy and strangely weary when I enter a temple but the strength that it provides is far greater than anything that is written in anything I have read so far. Most vampires are two or three times stronger than a mortal, but I’m several degrees stronger again. That’s not to mention the other abilities that I used against the cultists.”

 Viconia went quiet for a moment as she looked at me, thinking over what I had already told her about what had happened. “Creatures that are able to change form are known within the Underdark, but usually from one form into another, and not into multiple forms.”

 “These abilities are akin to Lycanthropy but it is not the same as that disease. There are stories of vampires becoming one with the darkness but none that I can find is of them being able to transform into bats or mist or physically growing stronger and their face changing when they turn. There are also no stories where anything more than their canines lengthen into fangs, where the more the vampire takes over the more my face changes and the more teeth that change shape.”

 “So what do you think is the cause?” her question was honest and she leaned further back in her chair, moving some further strands of hair out of her eyes.

 “I think that feeding on the daedra has turned me into a form of vampire that either has never been encountered before or is so exceedingly rare that it’s never been recorded. To have simply gotten to this point in the past would have required a concentrated effort on the part of not only an infected individual and a highly experienced conjurer. The amount of time and resources it would have needed to summon a daedra at just the right time for someone infected with vampirism and then manage to drink its blood would have been near impossible to complete before this. That’s not including the fact that I’m not sure if anyone would have considered undertaking something so drastic and incredibly dangerous before.”

 Once again she smiled, standing up from her chair and moving around to my side of the table. “So you are unique.” She murmured, and I felt a shiver of pleasure as she gently patted me on the shoulder. “I doubt that any of the answers that you seek are going to be found trapped on paper abbil.”

 “I’m suspecting as much myself.”

 “Then discover it for yourself the more interesting way.” My nervousness at not only her proximity but her light touch was building rapidly by the second, sending fire flooding through my veins. “Rather than wasting your hours reading you should be testing yourself. I am going to retire for the evening, but come the morning I’m going to learn more about you…”

 There was a wicked pause from the beautiful Drow and she was fully aware of the effects of her proximity to me. “On the training square.” She finished, smiling and showing her teeth in such a way that left my mouth dry and lightheaded. “I suggest that you get your own rest while you can.”

 She strode away, revelling in the control she knowingly held over my emotions. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint me…”

 I stayed up only long enough to gain some semblance of control over my desires. For a few minutes I strode the battlements to let the cold mountain winds to reduce my ardour, before crawling under the layers of furs and cloth in my bunk.

 The routine of the fortress became second nature to us once more, training our bodies during the day and my mind of the night. Viconia and I became regular training partners to the amusement of the others who would watch our sessions. Viconia was quicker and more precise that what I was but I had a slight edge in strength and power that only barely made us an even match. If we ever found ourselves fighting unrestrained it would still be an even battle as my vampiric nature would be met with her magical abilities.

 Every night as dinner would be served, Jauffre had taken the opportunity to brief the assembled Blades in occurrences throughout the empire and the campaign against the cult. Almost a full week after our return to the fortress Jauffre stood, framed by the fireplace and looking over the sea of faces arrayed at the tables in the hall. His expression was grim and he looked every day of his true age.

 “The war has begun.”

 As the silence deepened he motioned with a single sheet of parchment in his hand. “Oblivion gates have opened throughout Tamriel, and while each have been comparatively small compared to what happened to Kvatch there have already been losses.”

 “How bad is it?” one of the Blades asked softy, her voice barely above a whisper.

 Jauffre paused, seemingly to try to not believe the reports that he had been receiving over the previous days. “Villages been razed, hundreds slaughtered and if the reports I have received are accurate then some cities have been destroyed. Ald’Ruhn is apparently nothing more than a smoking ruin.”

 Those of us familiar with the Dunmer city openly gaped at the news. The seat of House Redoran was one of the more defensible cities in Vvardenfell and for it to fall did not bode well for the rest of the Empire.

 “How?” the question echoed through the room, the speaker unseen among the tables. “The Mythic Dawn has been smashed. We control their shrine. How are these portals being created?”

 Martin stood up from his chair and moved towards the centre of the hall, nervous at speaking but confident in his knowledge. “Those who Kaius and Viconia killed in the Lake Arrius Caverns represented only a tiny fraction of the whole. There are possibly dozens of cultists still hidden in every city throughout Tamriel and while the loss of their shrine is crippling it isn’t fatal.”

 Carefully he opened a lid of the crate sitting near his chair and rummaged through its contents for a moment. I could see it was one of the dozens that I had last seen within the cult’s storerooms, and as he turned around he held a pair of the perfectly formed spheres of obsidian in his hands.

 “These are Sigil Stones.” He explained, holding them up for all of us to see. “They are the key and the way that the cult is summoning the portals. They don’t look like much but these represent the ultimate level of knowledge of the arts of Conjuration and Alteration. With these, even the most unskilled of mages can create a portal to Oblivion.”

 “So how do we stop them?” I asked carefully, seeing nods of agreement in the crowd of Blades around us.

 “The most preferred option is to stop them from creating the gates in the first place.” He held up the stone in his right hand, showing it to us all and showing that it was black and perfectly smooth with no discerning features. “The stockpile of these stones that we have acquired from their shrine is a considerable setback to the cult and all that are being found are being brought here for safekeeping.”

 Carefully, he raised his other hand and the stone contained within. It was no simple sphere of polished stone, but seemed to be writhing and pulsating with foul energies. Ethereal flames swirled inside like oil spreading through water, and a symbol had been carved into the surface that hurt the eyes to look at. “However, when the stones activate they are pulled into oblivion, creating a portal with the stone acting as an anchor within that foul realm. This activation, when done correctly and through the correct rituals can be performed anywhere and is perfectly safe other than creating an entrance for Daedra to enter Mundus. But as you all can expect, the Mythic Dawn don’t care about safety so every time a stone has been activated you can guarantee that the one performing the ritual is killed and their soul sent screaming into Oblivion.”

 With a nod of his head Martin motioned to Viconia and myself. “Once a portal is opened the only way that it can be closed is by someone removing the stone from where it anchors and channels the energies. This particular stone is the one that Viconia removed from the portal outside of Kvatch so in essence every portal that opens needs to be closed by someone physically entering Oblivion.”

 The unease that washed through the room was obvious as was the sudden sour stink of fear from some of the more junior Blades. The thought of willingly entering Oblivion through waves of daedra was not one that came easy, not even for the Emperor’s agents.

 “Thankfully to create a Sigil Stone takes a ridiculous amount of time, resources and knowledge.” he continued, straightening as he placed the stones back into the crate. “Not only do you have to prepare a chamber of exacting specifications, but there are only two days of the year during the spring and autumn equinox that the rites can be undertaken. The rites themselves are extensive and time consuming and even the slightest error can render the entire ritual useless, but once created the stones can be stored indefinitely and are difficult to destroy.”

 “The trick and our key strategy to stop more gates from opening,” Jauffre continued, “Is to track down these stones by tracking down the cultists and ensuring that no more can be created. The caverns at lake Arrius had two such chambers prepared and they had over forty crates in the storerooms. Each crate contained at least four stones but there were signs that there were more that had been recently removed. We have to go by the assumption that there could be any number of these things scattered throughout the Empire and the sheer numbers involved means that there are easily dozens of the ritual chambers hidden out there.”

 He gaze was as hard as steel as he looked over all of us sitting around the fireplace. “I have already sent orders to every Blade throughout Tamriel that their priority is to track down the cultists and find these chambers. With their recruitment location compromised they will struggle to gain more members and without the chambers they will be unable to create more stones.”

 “The worst news is still to come.” Martin spoke up again, looking downcast at the news he was about the share. “We are in a race against time before the barriers between us and Oblivion fail and every gate that is opened hastens us to that end. It’s like poking holes into a sheet of mouldering fabric, with each hole the fabric becomes weaker until it simply falls apart.”

 “The biggest issue that we currently face is that while our brothers and sisters can track down and deal with individual cultists on their own, we have to rely on outside assistance to smash any cells that they uncover.” Jauffre motioned to all of us again, pacing up and down in front of the fire as he spoke. “Every city in the Empire appears to have a dozen or more cultists working in a coven and we just don’t have the numbers to defeat them on our own. So far the outer provinces have access to resources or groups capable of offering the manpower needed. Skyrim and Morrowind are going to be the easiest to clear of the cult. Skyrim’s holds and the Companions are willing to lend us aid and with the destruction of Ald’Ruhn not only are the Great Houses offering aid but so is the Tribunal Temple.”

 He sighed heavily, rubbing at his eyes even as he tried not to show any form of weakness. “But here in Cyrodiil we are coming up short. I can’t afford to send any of you away with the threat of one of these daedra worshippers opening a portal outside our walls, and with the stagnation of the Elder Council I have no authority to utilise the Legion or Imperial Watch.”

 “What about Kaius and myself?” Viconia asked simply.

 He nodded. “As capable as you two are, you can’t be in more than one place at a time. We need a group with the numbers to be able to assist our operatives everywhere they are needed and to do so at a moment’s notice.”

 “What about the Fighter’s Guild?” I added, feeling everyone else turn to look at me. For a second I paused at the attention before shrugging. “They sound perfect for your needs. There’s groups of them in every city and if there is one thing that they excel at its pest control.”

 There were a handful of chuckles from the Blades around me at my black humour and Jauffre’s face creased into a slight smile. “We don’t have the coin to put them all on the payroll.”

 “You don’t need to.” Jauffre motioned for me to continue as my anxiousness increased at everyone’s undivided attention. “They trade in coin and reputation. If you can’t provide the coin directly but can assist them improving their reputation to get more contracts instead then I believe they will be willing to help. They have been falling on hard times as of late and now with everything that is going on they are going to be struggling as every sell-sword, caravan guard and retired legionary dusts their gear off and starts advertising their services.”

 “It sounds to me like you have an idea on how to improve their reputation.” His eyes were amused now.

 “I think if they were known to have the Heroes of Kvatch in their ranks that not only would the flow of coin improve but they as an organisation would consider helping killing off a few cultists from time to time. If not _gratis_ , then at least in exchange for favours in the future.”

 “You’d join the Guild?” Belisarius mocked me lightly in good humour. “And waste all your potential with a group of thugs?”

 “Look, I’m no good for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. I’m able to cut throats and kill unarmed cultists by the dozen but as for tracking them down in the first place?” I waved my hands in front of me hopelessly. “Some days I’d struggle to find my own arse unless I sat on my hands.”

 Viconia’s expression said that she doubted I’d be able to succeed even in that scenario and I made a point of ignoring her. “But killing rats and rescuing Khajiit out of trees? That I can do.”

 “And you Viconia?” Jauffre asked, turning to her.

 “Sounds more exciting than sitting around her waiting for the end of the world.” Her arms crossed in front of her chest as she leaned further back under everyone’s stares.

 “Well it sounds plausible, and if I know Vilena and Modryn then they won’t turn down two new recruits with your fame. I’ll send a message to them tomorrow and let them know to expect you in Chorrol.”

 We continued talking for an hour or more, discussing details of the campaign against the Mythic Dawn. It would easily be a month or more before Martin could make any real headway with the _Mysterium Xarxes_ or to find a way to track down the Cult’s leader. In the meantime, it seemed that Viconia and I were to be the newest recruits in the Fighters Guild, a fact that I knew would please Barz gro-Khash once he heard. It would be couple of days before our equipment would be ready and so we had some time to rest in comfort, to stretch out the last of our injuries and prepare for whatever the Guild would throw our way.

 For a while we listened to the Blades, and to Martin and Jauffre explaining and coming up with further ideas to stop the machinations of Mehrunes Dagon and his followers. The idea of utilising the Imperial Tariff and Customs systems to track the use and trade of materials utilised in the cult’s activities and creation of Sigil Stones was snatched up eagerly by Jauffre. It was doubly effective when Martin stated that the key ingredient for nearly all of the rituals was significant quantities of Void Salts which their comparative rarity would make it easy to track and monitor. The Imperial Tax agents would become unknowing pawns in the battle against the darkness once Jauffre utilised some of his contacts and skill. Soon the word had been sent out to every corner of the Empire that Void Salts were now to be taxed and controlled in a similar manner as ebony and Dwemer artefacts. Reports of smuggling or purchases over a handful of grams would soon be finding its way to Jauffre’s desk where he could direct agents to investigate. It was confronting to know even the tiniest hints of how much power the Emperor’s Soldier-Spies could wield.

 We stayed another two nights at the fortress, ensuring that our armour was repaired or replaced as best as it could be by the smiths. My chainmail hauberk was completely repaired and a new breastplate replaced the other punctured by crossbow bolts. Despite the weight I was no longer willing to rely on speed and agility alone for protection as what I once was. I would now fight with as much metal cladding my skin as I could without reducing my effectiveness with a bow and Viconia was similarly following the same ideas. While remaining as nimble as a dancer or acrobat she had ensured that a new plate cuirass covered her chest and an armoured gorget protected the spot where a bolt had punched deep. She would not fall victim the same way twice.

 Come morning we once more were dressed and our horses saddled, feeling the chilly breeze from the snow clad mountains on our faces as we looked over the assembled Blades. Martin and Jauffre were in the group, thankful for our assistance and confident in our abilities but still uneasy with once again watching us ride off into the distance to an uncertain future. There was no doubt that we were fully capable of completing our mission to gain the assistance of the Fighter’s Guild but after what had happened to us both at the hands of the Mythic Dawn they were worried about what price we would pay. Neither Viconia and I said anything for the first hour as we travelled down the winding path in the direction of Bruma, instead choosing the company of our own thoughts at the task ahead.


	12. Hunting Minotaurs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where the story starts diverging from the overall game. Characters, locations and quests are still recognisable but the detail is now increasing and the lines beginning to blur. Everything is still within the bounds of the game and the mods such as Glenvar Castle but from this point onwards my imagination is taking greater control. 
> 
> Enjoy :-D

It was nearly midday when we finally arrived at Chorrol, the autumn sun beating down and filling the air with the smell of the last ripening wheat fields as they were harvested. This would be the last we would travel by horse, which from our experiences it was not something that either of us would begrudge. Both of us were so used to travelling on foot by now that we found ourselves longing for it as we dismounted and handed our steeds over to the hostlers at the city stables for a handful of gold septims.

 By the time the midday bell began to toll we had found ourselves in the headquarters of the Cyrodiil Fighters Guild, presenting ourselves in front of Vilena Donton and her second in command Modryn Oreyn. The two of them presented imposing sights, both hardened by decades of mercenary work and having the scars and injuries to show for it. Vilena was close to Jauffre’s age and Modryn appeared to only be a handful of years her junior at the most, but despite their advancing age they still had bodies hard forged by combat. Vilena still possessed a frame that would rival a professional lumberjack and Modryn, while whippet thin in comparison had a similar strength and agility of an acrobat.

 The messages that they had received from Cloud Ruler and Jauffre, as well as the good word that Burz gro-Khash had provided ensured that we were welcomed warmly, but there would be no preferential treatment. We were new inductees and would be treated the same as all the others who entered the guild and despite our fame as the heroes of Kvatch, and members of the Blades we would have to earn our keep, and the respect of the other guildsmen the hard way.

 Unlike other adventurers and mercenary groups throughout Tamriel the Fighters Guild provided a specific service not only to those wishing to hire its services but also to its members. Members of the Guild would be expected to undertake any contracts received by the local Chapterhouses and would receive between 75%-90% of the agreed price. The rest would be provided to the Chapterhouse and the wider Guild to pay for everything from repairs of the houses, to pensions and stipends for those members who had served several years in the guild or who had received crippling injuries. Such an arrangement was designed to provide security to those who joined the Guild’s ranks but if there were no contracts then there would be no income and most members were only loyal to coin.

 For the week that we stayed in Chorrol we spent most of our time either idle or training with the handful of guildsmen who were inclined in such a way. For most part we found that the Cheydinhal Chapter was very much the norm. Whenever the members of the Guild were not fulfilling contracts they were usually idling their days away or crawling into the bottom of a flagon. Only the most experienced or keen would bother with honing their skills and after spending so long with such professionals as the Blades we found ourselves missing their routines.

 Modryn Oreyn was not one for resting on his laurels however. The aging dark elf found us shortly after dawn on the third day since our arrival and stated that he had found a suitable test of our skills. As was the tradition he informed us, the first contract any new inductees undertook would be done completely for free to determine their true suitability for membership. Our trial by fire would be a relatively simple one, a farm a couple of hours walk to the south east had been suffering goblin raids as the greenskinned menaces plundered the ripening crops. Our first contract would be to travel to the farm, stay there overnight and ensure that the Goblins would not be capable of continuing their theft.

 Viconia grumbled somewhat about the apparent insult to her skills at something she considered akin to cleaning latrines but we both found ourselves marching onto the tiny farmstead in the forest before midday. The farm barely qualified itself for the name, a tiny stone-brick house and surrounding vegetable plots slowly losing the fight against the encroaching forest. The farm’s owner; an elderly widower by the name of Valus Odiil lived there with his two sons, both barely out of their teens and making a living from what little crops they managed to harvest and sell in the city. The old man was obviously concerned for his and his children’s welfare and as soon as we arrived both Viconia and I realised the reason why we had been provided this task for our initiation. Like nearly every farmer in Tamriel they barely had two wooden septims to rub together, and owning little more than the dirt under their boots no one else from the city was going to bother to help them. It was more than likely that if we hadn’t joined the guild when we did that both the old farmer and his sons would have either ended up dead at the knives and claws of goblins, or fleeing and leaving all their worldly possessions behind them.

 Instead they found themselves rising from a sleepless night, opening the door to their hovel and staring at amazement as the better part of an entire goblin tribe was now fertilising their fields. Both Viconia and I had slaughtered the creatures in the night with little to show for it other than a fresh layer of gore over our armour and clothing and a few expended arrows. The total amount of the contract was a measly 5 gold septims, which represented a year or two’s worth of savings from the old farmer and his family. Their gratitude for not only saving their farm but for the way how I had told them to keep the coins and other rewards they tried to bestow on us. Viconia’s disgust at my actions dogged me for the rest of the return journey as I told her that I was going to provide Modryn the 5 gold septims from our own meagre purses and by the time we entered the city gate I would’ve sworn that I had a burnt patch on the back of my skull from the intensity of her gaze.

 As for Modryn, he and all the other Guildsmen watched with something resembling disbelief and awe as I simply strode inside, dropping the pair of sacks on the floor near the front entrance that left some of their bloody contents to tumble out onto the floor. Just over twenty leathery heads were packed into the sacks and showed the grim and bloody total of our actions over the previous day. As I handed over the five coins from my own purse I ignored Viconia’s dark expression at my side and watched Modryn’s face as he used a considerable amount of will to keep his face neutral at the pair of stinking sacks at our feet.

 With a few more days it was obvious that we were no longer going to be of much use to the guild remaining in Chorrol. Contracts around the region were almost non-existent but there were plenty of other chapterhouses that would benefit from our assistance. So on the sixth day of pour arrival Viconia and I found ourselves sitting on a pair of wagons heading south, being little more than glorified caravan hands as we made our way to the West Weald and the City of Skingrad.

 The region around Skingrad was one of the richest and most prosperous within all of Cyrodiil. The extensive fields of wheat and grapes and the dozens of wineries as well as mines hewing precious metals out of the rock ensured that the trade travelling from the Port of Anvil towards the Imperial City was well met through the county. The food grown in this region alone counted for a significant portion of the supplies keeping the heart of the Empire alive and most of the silver septims circulating through Cyrodiil originated from not only the mines, but the mints and metalsmiths of the city.

 In such an area however the wealth also attracted those who coveted it. Bandits were common, as were goblins, ogres and various other threats that came to cut their own slice away from the rich flesh of the county. Where this would serve to be a significant issue for almost anywhere else in the Empire, Skingrad was ruled by an extremely capable, if reclusive Count who did everything in his power for the lands under his rule. Between fostering strong relations with the local Legion Forts and outfitting a professional force of citizen-soldiers and guards, Skingrad was one of the quietest and most heavily patrolled regions outside of City Isle. Unfortunately this resulted in few proper contracts for the local members of the Guild who had become increasingly lazy until they were even defaulting on the few contracts that came their way.

 The city was clean and well maintained, but the local Chapterhouse was not. Cobwebs hung from walls; most still containing their original inhabitants and the few pieces of equipment that still remained in storage was beginning to lose their campaigns against the encroaching rust. Where most other guild houses had in excess of two or three dozen members, the Skingrad Chapterhouse had less than ten, and most of these lived out of the local taverns and inns than doing anything resembling work. For most part they acted as bouncers and local muscle for merchants and craftsmen, otherwise they were a considerable thorn in the side of the city guard with at least one arrest for drunken behaviour or brawling every week.

 For once both Viconia’s and my emotions aligned perfectly and both of us were disgusted with the state and bearing of the local guild and its members. While not solely their fault none of them had even so much as lifted a finger to better their situation. They were all content in drinking their days away and it was only a single trio of the guild who seemed to have any form of standards or professionalism. Ah-Malz the argonian, local-born Imperial Fadus Calidius and a young Bosmer Archer calling herself Parwen were the only three who seemed to have any sense of importance and duty. As a result, they would only rarely be found within the city or the guild, but instead spent their time hunting the various goblin tribes that were in the habit of infesting every cave and dark crevice to be found. We met them briefly between some of their hunts, exchanging our mutual opinions of the other members of the guild before going about our own businesses.

 For the first two days we found ourselves with little to do but hang around the chapterhouse and train against each other. Being alone with Viconia was becoming more and more distracting as the days progressed as I found it more and more difficult to put aside my growing attraction to her. As the relations between us seemed to warm noticeably so did the way we interacted until I was certain that she was purposely acting in certain ways or doing certain things that made my stomach clench almost painfully. Whether it be a hint of proximity during training where we found ourselves closer than what would be expected for swords practice or a sudden touching of fingers when we passed something between ourselves, I found myself increasingly infatuated with my Drow companion.

 What made it worse for me is that she obviously knew my growing feelings and acted upon them in a sultry, seductive way that only made things worse. Not having any experience with women was not helping me in the slightest and even a glance or half smile from her was enough to fan the flames of attraction that were growing stronger with every passing day. It was almost a relief when a runner arrived at the guild with word of a new contract at a settlement to the northwest of the city. A handful of farms and homesteads were suffering raids from an unknown source and all of the available members were contracted to head there, discover the cause of the raids and stops them by whatever means were necessary.

 Come morning of the third day we found ourselves making our way towards the tiny hamlet of farmers hovels half a day’s travel away with the remaining guildsmen in tow. They were a sorry looking bunch; poorly maintained arms and armour matching their owners who only seemed ready for the march after dunking themselves in buckets or water troughs. The five of them were pathetic in the eyes of Viconia and myself and after weeks of spending time with the Blades and my years in service to the Legion I felt sullied in their presence. Even after hours of marching they struggled to simply walk in a straight line, eyes crossed and heads drooping as the eventual hangovers were sweated out of them in the warm autumn sun.

 “It is days like this that I wonder what gods I have annoyed to punish me so.” One of our new companions murmured as he sweated profusely under a helmet that was obviously too large for him.

 I glared at him with enough venom that would’ve put a veteran centurion to shame but the Bosmer didn’t notice it. He was far too busy staring at his feet as he scuffed them through the gravel underfoot. “Days like this leave me thinking the same thing.”

 He slowly, and with eyes glazed from the force of his hangover lifted his head and looked at me, completely oblivious to the sarcasm and irony dripping from my voice. So far there wasn’t anything that I saw as redeemable within Maglir or his compatriots but we had been contracted to head out as a group and so I found myself stuck next to him as Viconia led the way. Typically short like the rest of his wood elf brethren, he appeared unusual in a way that he was clad in heavy plates of iron that were ill-fitting and worn not from extensive use but ill-repair. Unlike the rest of his kin he seemed to prefer to wear heavy armour and wield a sword and shield than a bow and leather. So far during the journey he hadn’t seemed capable of discerning my dislike of him and his misplaced belief of his superiority and self-worth. Instead he spoke incessantly about how much we were going to be paid and how he hoped there wouldn’t be any real work involved.

 The others with us were very similar. A collection of individuals as varied as their equipment and hailing from almost all parts of the Empire. A Dunmer, Breton, Argonian, Khajiit, and Altmer trailed behind and other than our membership in the Fighter’s Guild there was little in common between all of us, especially between them and Viconia and myself. Even Viconia’s usual self-serving, haughty attitude paled in comparison to theirs and I came to the realisation that when a Drow calls you arrogant and egotistical you have a problem.

 We were walking into the tiny hamlet in the depths of the West Weald. The great forest was over a day’s steady march north of us, and Skingrad’s towering spires of belltowers and battlements were fading on the horizion to the south. There was little in this region than gullies and rocky outcroppings, but the rolling hills and streams allowed wheat and other grains to be sewn with regularity. Dozens of tiny villages such as this one dotted the landscape. Some were little more than a collection of hovels located together for mutual support while others were growing into towns and were home than more than just farmers and their families.

 This village however was little more than a collection of mudbrick huts surrounding a tiny village square and a tavern. There was nothing here for the inhabitants other than the surrounding farmland that faded into the midday haze and now that danger had entered their lives there were very few that could be found tilling the fields as we made our way into the village.

 Eyes crowned in suspicion and distrust followed our armoured band. Visitors were rare outside of the handful of merchants who arrived with their wagons brimming with goods and the sight of several armoured and armed fighters in their midst did little to assays their fears. Only the knowledge that they were too poor for the attentions of bandits kept most of them staying rather than fleeing into the ripening fields of wheat.

 “Greetings good sirs.” Called out a voice and a hunched figure of one of the village elders hobbled over to us. “and m’lady.”

 Viconia gave him a gaze that would’ve frozen most with hesitation as she mentally tried to determine the old man’s greeting. After a moment she decided that it was a sign of respect rather than a veiled insult and relaxed slightly.

 “I certainly hope that you are our foretold assistance.” he continued, leaning on a cane of weathered redwood and looking over us all.

 I nodded, stepping forward and cutting off the others as they tried and failed to gather enough of their thoughts in their drunken and hungover minds. “We are. We’re with the Fighter’s Guild.”

 His crestfallen expression was sudden and I found myself wondering just how badly the local chapter’s reputation must be if a community such as this knew of it. “Ah... I see. I’m not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth but we were all hoping for the Milita or guard.”

 “They were otherwise indisposed.” I replied, looking over the growing collection of individuals as they gravitated towards our group and providing the handful of introductions.

 “I’m Joocator Hofinus, village Aedile. I suspect that the situation here is the usual for you. Crops have been destroyed, and there have been deaths. Something has come during the night several times this past month and has been leaving devastation in its wake.”

 “How many deaths?” Maglir murmured, looking distinctly unhealthy while lifting his helm and scratching under the padded coif underneath.

 “Six so far. Amrsek and his family were killed two nights ago and their home destroyed. There was barely enough left of any of them to bury.”

 I looked over the elder with an appraising eye and saw the old injuries up his bare forearms and the slabs of muscle that had not quite dissolved from age. He was strong from years eking an existence from the unforgiving soil but the arms showed scarring consistent from many years wielding a sword. Like many who served in the Legion he had been pensioned off upon receiving a grievous wound and allowed to return home to live out the rest of his years. The enforced limp spoke of an injury to the leg or perhaps knee that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

 He too was gazing over our sorry looking band of sell-swords and obviously wasn’t impressed at what he saw. The state of their equipment and the manner of their bearing was enough to ruin what little opportunity we had with first impressions but thankfully he seemed to be more confident with Viconia’s and my own appearance in the group.

 “Anyone have an idea of what is responsible?”

 He shrugged, shaking his head and leaning more heavily on the cane. “I have my suspicions but nothing solid. Whatever it is it is strong enough to splinter an oaken door like matchwood and pulp a grown man into an unrecognisable paste.”

 I tried and failed to ignore the concerning muttering from the other members of our party and Viconia and I shared a slightly concerned glance that was mirrored by the dozen or so farmers and assorted family members gathering around us.

 “Well, I guess someone better show us where the latest ‘attack’ occurred. Maybe we get lucky and they left some form of tracks.”

 In a small group the elder and other locals lead us a short distance from the central village to one of the several satellite farms surrounded in a sea of wheat. The smell of the ripening crops was a heady earthen scent that was unfortunately marred by the taste of death and blood that surrounded the ruined farmstead.

 The walls still stood but the roof had caved in on itself in places where the walls had been breached by some incredible force. The door was little more than splinters and I found my gaze heading to each location where someone had died as my vampiric senses allowed me to detect the patches of dried blood. Most of the farm was ruined, wagons upended, windows shattered and great swathes of crops simply ripped from the ground in twisting and random patterns for dozens of acres.

 Unease and nervousness was also evident on the breeze and a sizable portion that reached my nose was unfortunately from my supposed comrades in arms. Viconia thankfully gazed over the devastation with no change in expression or even the slightest hint of discomfort. After her upbringing in the Underdark and a brief jaunt into the depths of Oblivion a ruined farm barely rated a mention.

 “So this happened at night?” I asked Joocator, gazing about and slowly seeing the patterns of movement where several large creatures had made their paths through the farm. Whatever wasn’t ripped out of the ground by the roots had simply been trampled into the dirt.

 Joocator followed beside me as I walked through the devastation, watching as I knelt down over certain items of places to get a closer look. “ _Yeh_. Everyone heard the screams and what sounded like fighting. By the time a group of us had managed to band together and make it out here it was already over.”

 He pointed to the ruined fields with his cane while sitting on a mostly intact barrel laying on its side. “For the past fortnight the outer fields have been suffering similar raids, but this was the first time that it happened so close or to any of the buildings.”

 I ran my hand over the ruined doorframe of the hovel and noted how the thick wooden beams supporting the roof had been snapped in the centre by a blow of inconceivable force. Whatever had made entry had been too large to fit through the door and had battered its way inside to kill those huddling within. “Did any of the family survive?”

 The grief that filled those who had followed us was understandable in such a tiny close knit-community. Those who had died would have more likely than not shared blood with others in the village and the loss of family members was never easy to bear.

 “None were spared. Amrsek and Rasheille had four children, their youngest not even a year old.”

 My fist clenched so tightly that my leather gloves creaked and I knew that the gesture was not lost on the village elder. “Is there any caves around the area? Sightings of trolls or ogres?”

 “No caves as such, and there hasn’t been an ogre in this region for several winters. There are stories of goblins to the south and east but we haven’t seen any around here. The thing that gets to me the most is that their bodies weren’t eaten or otherwise touched. They were simply pulverised and then left where they had died.”

 “Well, that rules out trolls and ogres then.” I rubbed my jaw and looked around. Too much time had passed since it had occurred to leave any smell of whatever was responsible, even to my enhanced senses.

 Viconia however was picking her way through the detritus, studying the wreckage and the ground around the farmstead while the rest of our party seemed content to stand back and leave it all to us.

 “Do you breed cattle or oxen here?” She asked, kneeling down in amongst the torn and crushed wheat stalks a few metres from a shattered fence.

 There was a shake of the head from Joocator and a few of the other farmers. “We don’t have the money to raise livestock, and the soil around here is better for crops.”

 She looked over to me and motioned. “I think you should look at this abbil.”

 In the ruined ground where countless stalks of wheat had been forcibly ripped from the soil there were crushed indentations that for the most part left no clue to whatever had caused the damage. However, in the recently churned earth there was less than a handful clear tracks that made me feel strangely uneasy and confused in equal measures. Shaped like an oversized hoof, the prints appeared to be little more than tracks left behind from any regular breed of cyrodiilic cattle except for their obvious and overwhelming difference in size.

 “So a herd of cattle came through and trampled some peasants to death.” Maglir muttered, drawing looks of unbridled anger from the villagers around us. “So much for getting paid.”

 I turned and stared at him until he returned my gaze. “How many legs do cows have?”

 He shrugged. “Four of course.”

 “Can’t you see that these tracks only come in sets of two?”

 His face suddenly paled in a combination of the heat, his increasing hangover and the insulting tone in my voice. “Of course I can.”

 “Well then, you shouldn’t have any problems with seeing this as well.” To the gasps of those looking I pressed my hand into the base of one of the tracks, my splayed fingers not even touching the sides of the enormous indentation.

 “Minotaurs.” One of the nearby farmers murmured, making a quick sign to Kynareth with fluttering fingers. The sense of fear was suddenly evident from all involved as they looked at the devastation around them.

 “How much is this contract?” Maglir suddenly blurted, looking even paler than before.

 “Two Hundred and Fifty gold septims.” I replied, seeing the nods from the handful of villagers around us.

 The Wood Elf openly blanched at that and the handful of other fighters suddenly started sharing mutual curses and oaths. “There’s no way I’m sticking my neck out for that measly amount. Not against minotaurs and not if I have to share it!”

 “Our contract, you miserable cretin is to assist these people!” I snapped, my raised voice making everyone flinch back and ghosts of a smile play across Viconia’s and Joocator’s faces. That is what we are contracted to do!”

 “You ever faced a minotaur?” he spat in reply, looking at my expression as I didn’t respond. “I thought not.”

 “Have you ever faced anything more dangerous than a fly?” Viconia replied with a voice that could freeze a lake. Maglir may have considered getting into a verbal sparring match with me but a single glance from the Drow was enough to stop him momentarily.

 “Minotaurs are no joke. It takes at least a team of five to take one down and they are never found alone!”

 “This one is not going to end up as paste.” Hissed Ja-Bhizaka, the Khajiit member of the group and the others nodded in agreement.

 “So you’re just going to default on this contract instead? Like all the others you have defaulted on?” my anger was growing and I could feel the strange tingling sensation growing in my cheekbones.

 “If you care that much, then you go!” the short wood elf rose up to his full height which still left him looking upwards to face me. “The contract’s yours. It’s not worth it for what we’re getting paid, and I have a family to consider.”

 Throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the village several hundred metres away he stared both Viconia and I down. The others in the party had already turned away and were laughing and joking much to the growing anger from the farmers. “We’ll be in the tavern once you come to your senses. Don’t expect us to be there come tomorrow if you decide to go and attempt suicide.”

 He too turned and followed the others, shuffling and swaying slightly as they left us and the small collection of villagers amidst the destroyed farm.

 “Fine!” my voice was little more than a growl as I shouted after the retreating fighters. “To oblivion with all you pox-ridden sons of camp whores!”

 The force and volume in my voice was enough to make several of the villagers step away, trading expressions of unease between themselves. For their part the small group of guildsmen barely paused in mid step, and I watched with growing anger as Maglir merely twitched and after using a surprising amount of will continued walking without turning around.

 Viconia had turned a lighter shade from her own anger at their cowardice and the villagers seemed to be a mixture of confused and angry at being abandoned.

 “Cowards.” She murmured, spitting on the ground with enough force I was surprised the ground didn’t shake.

 “Perhaps you should just go.” The weariness and despair filling Joocator seemed to stab me in the gut and I found myself hating the other members of the local Guild. “We will petition the legionaries at Fort Dirich and see if they will come to help.”

 He flinched slightly as I scowled, turning and looking at Viconia. “What do you think?”

 “How many of these beasts can we be facing?”

 One of the villagers moved forward slightly, his build and clothing showing that he was one of the few hunters in the hamlet and well versed in the wild. “They’re herds are usually ten or so, rarely larger than twelve. The best way to remove a herd is to kill their longhorn; the alpha male.”

 There was an uncomfortable shrug from the man. “But that’s an even quicker way to get yourself killed.”

 “How dangerous are they?”

 “If provoked they can do this.” The motion of his hands took in the ruined hut and its surrounds. “But normally they are peaceful grazers and only harm those who threaten their young or breeding cows.”

 “Well, it looks like they have been provoked.” I carefully began checking my bow and other items of my equipment, much to the concern to those around us. “Where would they most likely be living?”

 “You can’t be serious!” spluttered Joocator. “I can’t in good conscience let you both go to your death!”

 “We’ve faced worse.” Viconia’s response was honest and received even more incredulity than what we were already being provided. “Kill the alpha male and the herd is no longer a threat? Sounds simple to me.”

 If they were all shocked at the rest of the guildsmen leaving, they were now utterly stupefied at Viconia and I not only considering hunting minotaurs, but preparing to do so on our own. Joocator watched with utter horror as we both checked over our various blades and my newest bow found itself in my hands as I strung its impressive shape with a waxed string.

 “You don’t have to do this.” He stammered, trying to think of something, anything to make us change our minds.

 “Six deaths already.” My reply was simple “I can’t leave with the likelihood of further deaths being added to that tally.”

 Viconia’s face was grim but the smile was one showing how much she was relishing the challenge ahead. “I’d do it just to show those _shu’karliiken_ how pathetic they really are.” Her finger stabbed in the direction of the other members of the guild as they faded into the wheat.

 “Shouldn’t take us anything more than a day to return.” The shock was not wearing off and I could see that most of the farmers present were already believing that they were looking at two dead people. I nodded my head in the general direction of the trail of destruction left by the minotaurs. “What is in that direction?”

 The old hunter gestured hopelessly. “It’s mostly wilderness, scattered forests and other vegetated areas. There’s a few caves scattered about but otherwise there’s only the ruins of Nonungalo.”

 “Ruins?”

 “Ancient Ayleid ruins. Used to be a major city as far as I can gather but no one’s been there in decades. It’s an evil place.”

 “Sounds like a good place to start.” I said simply to Viconia and received little more than a nod in return.

 The farmers and the village elder stood in stunned silence as we simply shouldered our packs, gripped our weapons and strode through the carnage on the trail of the minotaurs. I was angry, and frustrated and the brief conversation that Viconia and I had before going silent in contemplation of the task ahead was purely focused on how we had no real choice in the matter. We had to undertake the contract as if we failed or defaulted we would be considered to be the same as the other cowards and the Guild would not support the Blades. If we had managed to undertake other contracts successfully before this one then it wouldn’t have been as much of an issue. As it was the very first paying contract it was even more of a test than our battle against goblins. Whether either of us thought that it was a foregone cause was a secondary issue, as between Viconia’s pride and my determination not to fail neither of us were going to simply turn around and stay in a tavern for the evening.

 Thankfully the task of tracking the minotaurs was surprisingly easy, the towering brutes didn’t so much as leave tracks as smash their way through anything and everything in their path. Snapped branches, uprooted trees and churned earth was left in their wake and we could’ve followed the path even a month after with no issues. My nervousness of following creatures capable of such feats of strength was building with every destroyed tree or smashed log but I felt somewhat confident in my own increasing abilities granted to me by my curse.

 Viconia didn’t seem to be overly concerned, merely liking the carnage around us to a time where she and a handful of other Drow had hunted down and defeated a Fomorian in the depths of the world. Her brief description of killing a creature ten metres tall and strong enough to crush boulders in its hands made me feel a little more confident about hunting down a dozen bull-headed humanoids twice our height. My nervousness was still increasing however as we found ourselves making our way between enormous moss and grass covered stone blocks and crumbled walls of a city long since dead and abandoned.

 The ancient elves; the enslavers of humanity had built cities and settlements throughout Cyrodiil and the southern regions of the Empire. Only some were still in good condition due to being utilised or lived in by the younger races. Cities such as the Imperial City were far and few between, and most of the old cities were little more than the mouldering ruins that we now found ourselves slinking through. The signs that we were not the first living things in the ruins recently were everywhere, moss and creepers had been scraped away from the ancient stones and between the broken walls of Ayleid buildings the grass had been neatly cropped and grazed upon until only a few inches poked up from the soil. Dung was piled in several places, wrecked piles of bones from trespassing creatures and people alike were scattered about randomly and the scent of enormous animals was growing more potent with every step.

 Neither of us made a sound as we made our way carefully into the long dead city, placing each foot with care and ensuring that we remained downwind of any potential threats ahead of us. For the better part of an hour we moved deeper into the ruins, watching and listening for any signs of our quarry. It was not long until the traces of their presence materialised into physical forms and both of us watched in awe as one of the giant creatures stomped its way down an overgrown thoroughfare with a massive bundle of wheat and other vegetation crushed under its arms. The sight of such a creature made me suddenly very concerned about our chances, the giant beast over four metres tall, arms as thick as beer kegs and reverse jointed hooved legs as thick as pines. The massive horned head snorted and panted as it moved, each horn over a metre long and strong enough to gore a fully plated knight to death with a mere flick of its solid neck. Traces of clothing and a crude loincloth of rough hides and woven grasses covered parts of its bulk and revealed a base level of intelligence that only increased the level of threat that it represented.

 We followed behind the towering brute as it made its way unerringly through the ruins through a path worn through the grasses and into the stones beneath. Going by the belief that the creatures’ few numbers would mean that they would live in a central location somewhere we simply followed it, keeping to the afternoon shadows and ensuring that the wind was in our face as much as possible.

 Carefully creeping in its footsteps, we soon found ourselves near what appeared to be the central structure in the heart of the city. Long since abandoned, the tumbled masonry and overgrown debris revealed that a tower once stood above the central complex and while not overly tall it still left an entire street filled with its remains. At the base, the rounded and age-smoothed stones were separated and broken up only by a single darkened tunnel that lead into the depths of the constructed mound and the undercity beneath the ground.

 “Looks like this is the place.” I murmured to Viconia and we hunched down behind some jumbled stonework and a crumbling wall.

 “Certainly looks as such.” She stared at the gaping, inky black hole within the side of the structure. “How many do you think are in there?”

 Shrugging I glanced around and saw the wind flowing through the few strands of white hair dangling from under her hood. For a moment it waved briefly, rolling the errant strands over her shoulders before suddenly changing direction and pushing her hair forward of her face and in the direction of the minotaur’s den.

 “Oh… Shit….” Her expression changed to confusion as she saw my own eyes grow wide and not understanding the source of my concern.

 The wind changed direction suddenly and in the strange ruins it was suddenly flowing towards the hulking brute and the entrance to their lair. There were only seconds before our presences would be made known and I hurriedly fitted an arrow onto the bowstring and peered over the top of the broken bricks.

 Towering in the tunnel’s entrance the enormous beast suddenly stopped in place, head twitching and snuffling our scents being carried on the breeze. So close to their lair there was nowhere else to hide or to even attempt to run as it twisted about, breathing heavily and looking around the ruined city with tiny bovine eyes for the sudden smells that it detected. The surprise and shock only lasted for a short time before it dropped the bales of vegetation to the ground, head turning in our direction and knowing exactly where we were by smell alone.

 The enormous bellow from the minotaur felt like a punch to the stomach as it threw its head forward and sprayed spittle from its gaping maw. Without thought and purely from its bestial instinct it rushed forward, roaring the whole time and ignoring everything in its path as it charged. Its enormous reverse jointed legs slammed into the ground with titanic force, the impacts felt through the soles of our feet as it smashed through crumbling walls without slowing.

 My own animalistic instincts made it feel like time itself was encased in treacle. Carefully I raised the bow and hauled back on the string as though the 100 pound draw weight was nothing more than plucking at a lute string. I felt the fletching brush against my tightening jawline, the cheekbones shifting and writhing under my skin and the rippling muscle of the vampire filling my arms with unnatural strength. For what felt like minutes I held the string back, before releasing it and breathing out as calm as though I was firing into a straw practicing dummy.

 The barbed tip of the arrow punched through one of the creature’s eyes with enough force that the fletching was tangling with its eyelashes. Pride and satisfaction filled me for a moment until I realised that it didn’t stop the charging brute, nor even slow it down.

 It ran forward for another dozen paces, bellowing and smashing its way through another moss-covered ruin in an explosion of dust before it finally realised that it was dead from the broadhead lodged deep in its brain. With all the inevitability of an avalanche the minotaur buckled and fell over without even slowing is pace, slamming into the ground like a felled redwood and rattling our teeth in our skulls from the impact.

 Viconia laughed, a strange sound in such a situation but one of obvious appreciation of the shot I had just made. It chilled me to the core however as the sudden booming response from the depths of the ruins echoed from the tunnel mouth and the ground began vibrating as the dead creature’s kin responded to its warning howl. The drow at my side continued to laugh however, the tone darkening as her face once again scrunched into a frightening mask of determination and concentration that I was almost intimately familiar with by now.

 Hands tracing flickering lights through the air she didn’t even bother to draw her sword, instead calling upon the full force of her magical powers in a series of complex incantations and gestures. Within seconds her eyes had turned from the golden-yellow to a flickering white of a forge’s flame as the witch-light began to shine through. The tingle of magicka on the air was a metallic taste on the tongue and I could feel my own changes begin to shift through my own flesh. Muscles suddenly felt tight in my clothes, the chainmail sleeves of my hauberk suddenly taut as my arms and chest grew in strength and power. My bowstring was drawn back to the ear again, aiming not with the arrow but with my mind in a way that only an experienced archer could manage.

 Erupting from the depths of the earth the herd flowed in a wall of furred flesh and horns. Even the smallest of the beasts outweighed Viconia and I combined by a considerable margin and within seconds of entering the light of day they knew where we were. Half a dozen of the monsters rushed forward with blinding rage at not only our presence but at the death of their kin, bellowing through their snouts and lowering their horns for the charge.

 An arrow buried itself in one of their chests, appearing to be as effective as an insect bite to the enraged creature even as a second punched between a pair of ribs a second later. There seemed to be no stopping the minotaurs as they simply lowered their horns and battered their way through the ruins between us and the entrance to their lair. While I shot arrows as fast as I could draw them, Viconia was crackling with powerful magicka. Weaving intricate patterns that left afterglows in the eyes she roared the words of the spells before hurling enough violent lightning into the onrushing wall of flesh and horns that for a moment I was blinded. A couple of the minotaurs fell flat on their faces, flesh smouldering from the discharge and features contorted in searing pain. A fourth finally dropped as I punched half a dozen arrows into its chest in a tight cluster that had managed to skewer its heart. This still left a pair of them remaining that crossed the distance between us with frightening rapidity.

 We both threw ourselves aside as the first barrelled through our meagre protection with as much difficulty as I would pushing aside a curtain. Bricks and shattered mortar exploded as it shouldered its way through, followed closely by its last surviving clanmate as they chased after our darting forms. Viconia moved as quickly as a shadow being chased by the light, dancing and leaping her way up over ancient buildings with her usual liquid grace and making me appear clumsy in comparison. In a single smooth motion she snatched Dragonbane from its sheath, slicing and chopping at the grasping hands as large as her chest. Another bolt of lightning caught one in the face, followed by several centimetres of perfectly forged metal that seemed to pass through flesh, muscle and hardened bone like mist.

 The last surviving minotaur, a young male only a few years old at the most bleated with anger and panic as it found itself alone and facing the killers of the majority of its herd. Where most creatures would’ve given in to panic and fled, the young minotaur instead charged blindly on, lowering its head and short horns at the lithe drow who was suddenly stuck in place trying to free her trapped blade from the grip of bone.

 Before I had even realised what I was doing I had crossed the space between myself and the creature, tackling it and spearing it in the back with the point of Sunchild. The resistance of its flesh only lasted for a second before the sword was buried to the hilt in the creatures back, sending a roar of pain that hurt the ears and buffeted both of us with the volume.

 Twisting in my grasp the enormous brute flicked me aside as I lost my grip on my sword, falling to the ground and suddenly finding myself the sole subject of attention to the minotaur. Enormous despite its relatively young age, it was still three metres of rippling flesh in the amalgamation of a Skyrim ox and a wrestler. Torn between opponents it chose to face me as the one who had injured it, roaring and totally oblivious to the sixty centimetres of elf-forged metal lodged in a lung that left its breath pink and frothy.

 As it charged I found myself stuck between it and a wall and less than six metres separating us. Half a tonne of enraged muscle and dense bone rushed me with outstretched arms that could’ve crushed a mortal man, breath steaming in the air and blood splattering its chest. Both of us were just as surprised as the other when I simply roared back, catching both enormous arms as they went to grasp me around the chest in a crushing embrace. Gripping it by the wrists I felt the unnatural strength of the vampire grow, fuelled by the dark blood-taint of the daedra that left me suddenly able to check the creature’s enormous strength with considerable effort.

 The shock of my actions did little to the blood-savage mind of the minotaur as it simple pressed down hard with its full bodyweight that left every muscle of my body trembling with the effort of just holding it back. The fact I could even hold my own against a young juvenile was enough to show how potent and impossibly strong the vampire within me was. As I struggled I could feel my entire body rippling with the changes until links of my chainmail began to split and tear from the exertion and the swelling mass of my upper body expanding.

 I was forced to my knees, groaning and roaring through a face split and terrible with fangs erupting from my gums. My face was tighter than the muscles in my arms and my bones were beginning to creak from the strain of holding such a creature back even for a few seconds. For those handful of seconds I had somehow managed to hold back an enraged minotaur calf with nothing more than my bare hands.

 A blade point erupted though the minotaurs open, salivating mouth and suddenly the pressure ceased. Eyes rolling into the back of its skull, a fountain of high pressure blood suddenly gouted from between the enormous chisel-like teeth and I twisted and rolled away from the falling corpse.

 “That was impressive.” Viconia stated simply, making and effort not to look at me and I thrashed with the sensation of the vampire returning to my subconscious. Quickly and carefully she wiped Dragonblade clean on a mane of fur, looking over our handiwork and raising an eyebrow as I bent over dry heaving.

 “It always feels _weird_.” I explained quickly, wiping my mouth on the back of a glove to clear the minotaur spittle that had splattered my face. “Not exactly painful, but not without sensation.”

 “But effective nonetheless. You know that you don’t have to show off by wrestling such a brute?”

 “I thought you needed help.” I said, feeling stupid at saying it as the flash of indignation crossed her face.

 “You presume much _wael_. You might have wrestled one and shot two but I managed quite well against the rest.”

 Murmuring a poor apology as she glared at me, I rolled my neck and looked over our handiwork. Several tonnes of dead flesh lay scattered around us but it was obvious that only young calves and mature cows were among the dead. “I don’t think we’re finished though.”

 “Neither do I. I doubt that any of these specimens are the alpha male that we are seeking.”

 Together, weapons firmly in hand and Viconia filled with a crackling aura of raw power we made our way through the darkened entryway into the undercity. Normally stifling and claustrophobic in nature, darkened depths such as caves and tunnels were welcoming to the darkness infusing my soul. Within a heartbeat of entering into the depths my eyes adjusted unnaturally and pulled the shadows from my sight. Perfectly carved and placed marble blocks had been hewn from the stone or been built into the tunnels, filling the halls with the strange elegant beauty that seemed to fill all Ayleid constructions. Engraving thousands of years old covered every wall, statues stood silent vigil over ancient halls and every room held few clues to the majesty of the long succumbed race. Whatever had been capable of rotting and corroding had long since lost the battle against the march of time, and even the ancient stonework was hidden under layers of dust and creeping roots from trees nestling in the ruins above. Despite the age of such a place there had been little scavenging and everywhere ancient relics lay in the litter of the floors, rusting in places or glinting in fragments that provided no answers to their original owners.

 Our way into the depths was surprisingly wet lit, as gleaming stones were placed in regular intervals that although faded in potency still provided enough light for unenhanced vision. Some lay fallen and cracked on the floor, others seemed to fade in and out as though representing the dying heartbeat of a city long since lost to mortals. They illuminated enough for us to know that the tunnels were a home once more.

 Through the dust and piled into some of the branching tunnels and rooms the collections of the minotaur herd had been left to add to the decay of centuries. Fabric, weapons, agricultural equipment, bones, hides and broken glass as well as long rotted plants could be found everywhere. With most of the steps we took we had to ensure we didn’t tread through the piles of stools that had been left heaped on the edges of the tunnels. The overwhelming rank odour of the enormous creatures that had made their home in the depths would have been enough to make us gag if the memories of our journey into Oblivion were not fresh in our minds.

 Checking each room and collapsed hallway in turn we made our way deeper into the depths of the central catacombs, feeling the cloying semidarkness and smells of a minotaur clan wrap around us even tighter with every step. We were in the lowest levels of the ruins now, a region that had been surprisingly untouched by time, looters and scavengers but still deep with layers of dust. All of the passageways seemed to lead to this one hall, closed off by a single pair of enormous stone doors that would not have looked out of place in a castle gatehouse. Eight metres tall and curved to a point, they had blocked all attempts to access what laid beyond over the centuries until someone of impossible strength had broken through after a sustained assault.

 Gingerly we entered the room beyond the smashed doors, picking our way through the rubble of their destruction and finding ourselves in a massive expanse that could only be a throne room. Life sized statues lined the hall, each representing a long dead Ayleid ruler or champion lost to the ashes of history. The craftsmanship was masterful, every line and crease and tiniest detail etched out in stone in the attempt to capture the life and personality of those that it represented. Looking over the statues with a strange sense of awe I could see the same strange flowing shapes of their blades matching the one clenched tight in my fist, and although elegant they appeared to be little more than poor imitations of Sunchild.

 The rest of the enormous expanse was large enough for a crowd of hundreds to line the walls and face towards the raised throne on the far end. Alcoves and recesses were placed at specific intervals and behind the throne of polished and perfectly carved granite a pair of closed doors separated the hall from the handful of rooms beyond. The throne itself was a masterpiece of stonemasonry, engravings of such detail and skill that only when you were looking at it from centimetres away could you behold what was depicted. The deep grey-black of the granite was a stark contrast to the white marble and was another simple, if effective technique of directing the audience’s attention to whomever was powerful enough to claim such a position.

 Piles of trinkets and collections of random items and vegetation was scattered about the hall, piled up against the statues mounted on their pedestals and in the darkened recesses along the hall. Such alcoves were failed to be illuminated by the glowing Welkynd Stones mounted in the stonework but it was enough for both Viconia and I to note that there was potential of wealth scattered about the room.

 There was however, no real sign of our quarry other than the traces of the creature making such an expanse it’s lair. The herd had obviously been stockpiling for the coming winter months and their attempts of gathering such a prodigious amount of food had led them to the village and the bounty the surrounding farmlands had offered.

 There was a scrape in the darkness and both Viconia and I froze in place, glancing between ourselves and searching the room for a trace of our quarry. For several heartbeats I began to believe that my ears had been playing tricks on me in the dark until I heard the sound again. A deep, dull scrape of an undefinable substance on stone as something enormous moved in the depths of the ruins and I felt the skin of my face tightening as my vampiric instincts once again came to the surface despite my efforts to suppress it.

 “ _Shar dormagyn udossa_.” Viconia whispered, her eyes widening in the dark as she suddenly froze with the first signs of fear appearing in her eyes.

 I stopped and gazed into the dark, staring to the far end of the room in the attempt to see whatever it was that had left the slightest tremble of fear course though her. For a moment and even with my eyes I couldn’t seem to see anything until one of the pillars seemed to move forward with the same sound of scraping echoing through the room.

 Fear exploded behind my eyes and I stood, gaping at the realisation at what I was seeing. My suppression of my vampiric side had allowed me to see in the dark but didn’t provide the full ability to hunt by heartbeats alone. In the second it took to realise the size of the monstrosity that we faced I was already cursing the way how I had supressed the one skill I had to detect it in advance. What I had initially believed to be a pillar was instead an enormous muscular leg, hoofed and reverse jointed and as thick as a tree trunk. The alpha male of the minotaur clan was half the size again of its breeding females and its thick pelt was a dark grey rather than deep brown, rippling with enormous strength that had allowed it to smash its way through metre thick doors with only the slightest of effort.

 Six metres tall, it stood with its head hunched down due to the fact that it’s enormous curved horns would scrape the ceiling if it straightened, and a head with a mouth filled with shovel like teeth capable of biting a man in half. A creature of such size must have struggled to travel through the relatively tiny confines of the tunnels leading to the surface and I realised almost immediately that it had been living down here and relying on its herd to keep it alive and fed. In the years since it had smashed through the doors into the throne room it had grown larger, until it was no longer capable of leaving its subterranean home.

 Its hands were large enough to grip me entirely around the waist and chest, fingers as thick as my arms and everything was rippling with primal strength that seemed fully capable of picking up a knight and his warhorse and crushing them without any undue effort. It was enormous, overwhelmingly powerful and extremely angry at our presence.

 Snorting with rage, eyes narrowed and bloodshot it stomped forward, making the earth shake with every step. Three tonnes of muscle and bone moved towards us, reaching out and grabbing one of the statues with both hands before ripping it out of the floor, pedestal and all.

 “ _Gi’vith!_ ” Viconia shouted, diving to the side as the angry minotaur titan rushed forward swinging the three metre length of sculpted marble like a club. The impact rocked through the ground and up into our bodies with the sheer force and I felt dozens of stone fragments bounce off my armour as I too dived for cover.

 For such an oversized brute it moved like lightning and struck with the full power of a hurricane. Even wielding such a mass of stone it was only my vampiric abilities and Viconia’s elven grace that allowed us to survive more than a second against it. Ducking down and sliding across the floor I felt the buffeting winds of the impromptu bludgeon miss me by less than a metre as it pulverised the floor where I had been standing in another explosion of marble shards.

 The crackling, surging energies surrounding Viconia illuminated her in a gleaming halo of witch-light, her eyes blazing with the power that she called upon in a series of gestures that looked more akin to a dance than incantation. Unfortunately, the threat that she posed was not lost on the semi-sapient creature and ripping its club from the floor it turned to face her.

 Roaring with the power of the spell she thrust her hands out, fingers twisting and weaving through the air as she directed a blast of energy right into its face and chest. I watched, awestruck by the power that she had at her command as the minotaur rocked back from the impact, shielding it’s face with its free hand and bellowing as its flesh began to sizzle. What would’ve killed the others on the surface or utterly obliterated a human did little more than infuriate the titan that redoubled its efforts to kill us both.

 She dived out of the way again as it swung the now ruined statue and pedestal, utterly annihilating the two she stood between and only just missing her by the narrowest of margins. Sprinting as fast as she could she weaved between the other statues, putting as much cover between her and the charging creature as possible. It barrelled through everything in its path, legs pumping like pistons and shattering bricks under its cloven feet with earthshaking force. Before I knew what I was doing I found myself sprinting after it in an attempt to catch it before it caught Viconia, matching its roars with vampiric ones of my own.

 Ducking into an alcove she narrowly missed being pulverised into nothing by a wild swing, instead sliding into cover as it’s makeshift cudgel shattered in its grasp. A fist larger than my chest slammed into the tiny hole, missing the Drow only because of her agility and struggling to grab her lithe body. Slicing away with the gleaming edge of Dragonbane, a finger fell to the floor but the owner of the digit didn’t even seem to notice it’s loss. However, it did feel the fact that one of its legs suddenly went limp and nerveless.

 Hacking into a massive calf muscle like I was swinging an axe into a tree truck I slammed Sunchild deep until it was stopped by bone. Its hamstring severed, it suddenly dropped to a knee bellowing with such force that my eardrums nearly burst and my chest vibrated with the sheer intensity of the sound. Realising the threat it swiped across the ground, flinging the ruined remnants of yet another sculpture across the room but missing me as I moved closer to its enormous bulk.

 As it fell to its knees with a second hamstring severed another roaring wave of energy hit it in the face again, exploding an eye into jelly and shattering a horn at the root. Viconia was violently powerful, matching the creature’s brute strength with unrestrained power, calling upon her magicka reserves as I attacked it with Sunchild.

 Caught between the two of us the creature finally succumbed to the injuries being heaped upon it. Both legs had their muscles severed, arms were cut and gashed deeply and Viconia’s magical assault finally began to wear it down until it finally collapsed from the pain and damage wrought upon its body. Both Viconia and I were left panting and kneeling with exhaustion as it finally died, the twin points of Sunchild and Dragonbane lodged deep into heart and brain and blood pooling in thick, hot lakes ankle deep between the shattered statues and ruined stonework.

 “ _Nindol eighinn usstan gultah ulu dos isto’sunduiri._ ” Viconia gasped through heaving breaths. Tiny streams of blood trickled from the minor cuts and abrasions from flying stone on her face and one of my ears was bleeding from the creature’s roars, but otherwise neither of us were seriously injured.

 I tried to rise to my feet but failed to do so the first time, pushing up with my hands on my knees and sucking in the dusty air that was clogged with death and the smell of minotaur. “That is not something I want to go through again.”

 Viconia’s laugh was open but honest and sent a ripple of pleasure up my spine. It was a laugh of relief and surprise at finding oneself alive against all odds and she regarded me with a strange expression.

 “Neither do I, but I am glad that we both are effective in battle.”

 “You’re putting that mildly.” We both laughed for a few moments as I managed to drag Sunchild from the tree-trunk of a torso. “Who do you think killed it? Me or you?”

 “Me of course.” Her usual arrogance reappeared once more but there was the tiniest amount of amusement in her eyes. “Don’t worry yourself too much. I will tell everyone we meet that you helped.”

 I chuckled darkly and she watched with interest as I hacked into the creature’s throat after pulling her own blade from an eyesocket. It took a considerable amount of effort but finally I managed to separate the enormous head from its bullish neck.

 “I hope you don’t expect me to help you carry that.” She said simply, watching as I groaned under the weight from simply moving the head away from the body and coating myself in gore.

 “No. I’ll carry it. But you will have to help carry something else.” With a wicked grin I drew my tiny skinning dagger, and set to work shearing off a considerable chuck of pelt from the creature’s muscular back.

 With our grisly trophies prepared the two of us gave a brief search of the throne room and were surprised at what we discovered. Long since locked away by the Ayleids, the treasures of their local kingdom had been locked away in the antechambers connecting to the throne room. While most were mostly worthless, the ancient silk and other fabrics had turned to dust there was a surprising amount of precious gemstones and milted coinage of a type I had never seen before. The doors that the minotaur titan had smashed through had protected these treasures for thousands of years from the various robbers and adventurers who had tried their luck with such a place. Laughing and eyes lighting with a burning greed Viconia had stuffed every stone that caught her eyes into her pouches and I did little to stop her as I was too busy doing the exact same thing. Several lifetimes of a legionary’s salary were stuffed into every pouch and fold of our clothing and equipment and I could feel the significant weight of such treasures weighing down on me almost as much as their physical weight.

 Most of the treasures were too large or bulky or heavy for us to carry, artefacts and items forged from precious metals were scattered about in the reliquaries or containers and although it pained me to leave such valuable objects behind we soon had more riches than we had ever expected.

 With a sled made from branches and the ruins of my cloak we returned to the surface, dragging the immense head of the titan covered by a large section of its pelt behind me. The head alone weighed over half my bodyweight, and as I puffed and swore and pulled on the makeshift sled I was left aching and panting with the effort through the hours of the afternoon. It had only been a couple of hours past midday when we arrived in the ruins and by the time we had finished dragging the evidence of our kill back to the village night had fallen and the clouds above our heads had broken into a drizzling autumn shower.

 As night had darkened the landscape those in the village had retired to their homes and families, or in most cases had travelled to the lone tavern at the central square. There was a dark mood across the village that had nothing to do with the weather and more to do with recent deaths and the loud cries of amusement and drunkenness echoing from within the lit dining hall.

 Viconia and I stopped outside, feeling the rain pattering off our armoured shoulders and uncovered faces. Despite the increasing chill I was sweating profusely from the effort of dragging the heavy head of the minotaur titan, feeling the salt sting the eyes as the rain washed it from my forehead and hair. The blood and gore that covered us was no longer congealed into our flesh and chainmail but was gradually being sluiced off by the constant, showering rain. We were exhausted, bedraggled and sore but we were buoyed by our success just as much as our anger was increasing from the sounds coming within the well-lit tavern.

 The door creaked as we pushed our way inside and I staggered under the weight of the decapitated head as I slung it over onto my back, holding onto its remaining horn with both hands. Without my vampiric strength there would be no way that I would have been able to lift or carry it for an y distance greater than a metre and my rising anger was enough fuel to push me through the last dozen metres and into the warm dry interior.

 Inside the tavern’s dining hall, the other members of the guild were well on the path to drunken excess. The five of them spending the time raucously laughing, drinking and playing dice on one of the several tables in the room and completely blind to the hostile stares of the rest of the patrons. Most of the villagers were within the tavern, staring at the tiny group of armoured fighters with building hatred that was steadily increasing the longer they stayed in town and with every mouthful of potent liquor they consumed. Completely ignorant to the opinions of those around them none of the cowardly sell swords realised that the likelihood of blood being split during the night was steadily increasing. Viconia and I found ourselves facing the sight of them dragging one of the tavern maids over, relieving her of several flagons of alcohol destined for other patrons and becoming a little too physical with her for both our tastes.

 Several of the farmers had risen from their seats where they had been staring over their mugs of wheat alcohol at the way they started treating the young barmaid and a glint of a caneknife appeared in the dark as it was drawn from a belt. The building tension suddenly ceased at Viconia’s and my appearances in the doorway, fully armoured and dripping with blood and water as everyone stopped and openly gaped.

 Maglir recognised us first despite the drunken haze that was infusing his sight from hours of drinking. He stood from his chair, tipping over slightly and supporting himself with one hand on the table while the other thrust a sloshing flagon in our direction. “Brother! Sister! I am so glad you decided to give up that pointless contract and join us!”

 Neither of us said anything as we stomped our way over to their table, ignoring the cries of surprise from the others in the room as they saw what it was that I was carrying. The drunken fools at the table they couldn’t see what I had over my shoulder and their looks of confusion at our silence and darkened expressions increased with every pace. The Altmer with a hand hidden within the barmaid’s dress let her go as we approached, a hand dropping to a dagger on his belt as they realised that we were not in the mood for talk or joining them in their activities.

 Their weariness was suddenly replaced with terror and shock as I roared with effort, slinging the head by the horn and slamming its full weight into the centre of their table with a crash of broken wood and jingling coins as they were scattered across the floorboards. A pair of legs snapped cleanly, catapulting flagons and their contents over a pair of the fighters as the enormous head simply fell into their laps.

 Maglir dropped onto his rear, scrabbling away from the bloody trophy and staring into its dead face. One eye was leaking jelly and its tongue lolling loose in an opened maw large enough to fit his head in. Teeth were shattered in its jaw, shreds of flesh dangling from the severed neck and watery blood had splattered everyone within a metre of where it had landed.

 “Contract completed.” I growled.


	13. Skingrad

For the night we rested, feeling thoroughly relaxed and completely exhausted from the day’s activities. The farmers and villagers were overwhelmingly grateful at what we had accomplished, doubly so after the pathetic actions of the other members of the Guild. When morning broke there was no trace of the other five members of our party who, after being ejected from the tavern had seen the sense in slinking away in the cover of darkness. We stayed for the night free of charge, many of the patrons attempting to buy us rounds of locally brewed beer and ale. It wasn’t long before an impromptu celebration had formed to the sounds of laughing, singing and dancing with almost the entire village present.

 Well after midnight Viconia and I finally managed to disentangle ourselves from the press and manage to get a few hours of rest. The party however continued unabated and it wasn’t long before the enormous minotaur skull had found itself jammed onto a pole in the village square, the last of its blood drying in the sun and flesh already beginning to swarm with blue-black flies. Children laughed and played in the shadow of the skull and men and women alike were already greatly inebriated, all thoughts of death and loss for the moment at least being replaced by hope and merriment.

 Roars of appreciation met us when we left our rooms, mugs and flagons and containers of every type being thrust in a toast to our honour. Viconia and I both seemed to be in the same mindset of not enjoying centres of attention but our growing fame as the heroes of Kvatch would mean that this situation would soon be a regular occurrence. In this tiny hamlet in country Skingrad we had further solidified our legend that would begin to grow in a life of its own.

 Joocator found us within minutes of leaving the tavern into a village filled with festivities. The village elder and a handful of other officials appearing as though conjured to bestow various honours they saw fit, and thankfully our contract payment that the guild expected. Viconia slapped away hands bearing garlands of pressed flowers and took most of the attention with an ill grace. By the time the tiny chest filled with coins was pressed into my arms I had several wreaths of flowers wrapped around my neck and arms, had shaken hands with nearly everyone in the village and been on the receiving end of kisses from some of the women and hugs around the legs from some of the smaller children. One tiny youngster had to be pried away from my armoured greaves by his mother as he simply refused to let me go.

 Alcohol flowed freely, couples danced in the dozens and there would be no work being done this day and probably the next. After such fear and death that had occurred they all threw themselves into the celebrations with gusto and I knew that without a doubt that there would be several new children being born during the following summer. It took the better part of an hour to convince them that we could not stay and that we would have to return to Skingrad but we finally managed to leave, bidding our farewells and chuckling at how the village was already considering renaming itself “Titans End”

 Returning to Skingrad was a relatively easy and quiet affair. We simply entered the city, made our way through the bustling streets to the chapterhouse and handed the payment of the contract over to the hulking guild porter for counting and distribution. Most of the payment would be going to the two of us, and one fifth would be used by the guild itself. We were not as overly concerned with money as what we had been forty-eight hours previously and as soon as we found a free moment the two of us found a room to ourselves and sorted through the piles of gemstones and other various treasures that we had acquired from the ruins. There was more wealth in our bags that what I had any hope of seeing for an entire lifetime’s service to the legion, but unless we found a suitable and honest jeweller it was almost no better than having pouches full of coloured glass. For the moment however we both marvelled at what we had accomplished, and Viconia’s eyes shone with an unusual intensity as we sorted through the pile of gems in front of us.

 The amount was deceptively small in appearance and had filled only three of our pouches, but was easily worth a king’s ransom. Dividing them between the two of us there was little for us to do and even less of what we could think of to spend it on. Neither of us could come to any decision on what to do with our wealth, so for the moment we simply placed them in our pouches, kept a couple out for selling to the first honest jeweller we came across and otherwise continued on as what we had previously.

 For the next couple of days, it was quiet. Maglir had vanished, seemingly deserting the guild and its responsibilities while the others had decided to make themselves scarce. They showed their faces in the guild from time to time but never lingering and sleeping elsewhere in the city. The word of our success was spreading and it would not be long before more contracts would find their way to the local Chapterhouse. For the meantime we found ourselves once again with all too much free time to occupy ourselves with.

 The day after returning I made my way through the city, leaving Viconia to haggle and deal with a pair of jewellers with a handful of our recovered gems. We had discovered very quickly that she was the best to get deals with any vendors or merchants due the combination of her exquisite good looks and hard personality. Being able to haggle extremely effectively through mild seduction or by sheer intimidating presence ensured that we soon had a healthy collection of coins jingling in our purses. Making my way through the market district and the mass of shouting vendors and their prospective clientele I followed my nose in the direction of my goal.

 Every major city and nearly every town and village worthy of the title had their usual collection of fellmongers and tanners. The demand for leather was one of the major trade goods for the empire; being used from everything from clothing, bedding and book bindings but the disgusting process for curing such materials ensured that they almost exclusively located in the poorest of districts. The stench of a horrid mixture of urine, faeces and rotting flesh was enough to turn aside all but the most determined of citizens from living or working anywhere close to where the tanners went about their work.

 I made my way there as a customer, carrying the considerable hunk of pelt of the Minotaur lord over a shoulder as I went to the small collection of stalls and shops in amidst the tanning pits and tanks. Skingrad may have been one of the richest cities in the Empire but there was no hiding the fact that the area around the tanning pits and fellmongers workshops was almost exclusively the poorest of boarding houses and shacks. Judging by the smell that felt potent enough to strip paint I didn’t blame anyone for not wanting to live anywhere downwind.

 Introducing myself to one of the apron clad tannery workers I soon managed to find myself discussing prices with the tannery owner as he ran his fingers over the roughly hewn pelt. A craftsman and artesian like any blacksmith or engraver, the foul-smelling fellmonger had extreme pride in his job and having an amount of such material placed before him was almost intoxicating. He ran his fingers over the jagged and frayed ends where I had cut it from the minotaur’s back and I knew that in his mind he was thinking of what crafts he could make with such a rare commodity. Minotaur leather was one of the most sought after of leather goods in Cyrodiil, if not the empire. For this man to find himself looking over such an amount of unsurpassed quality was something most tanners would only dream of.

 Our discussion of price was almost half hearted and he was more interested in knowing what I wanted fashioned from the hide so he could calculate how much he would have left over for further profit. Any of the scraps would fetch high prices for him after selling pieces to high-born nobles or the exceedingly rich. The price that I had bargained with him and his leatherworking colleague for custom made boots, gloves, cloaks and hoods for Viconia and myself was ridiculously cheap as they both had their minds set on having the left overs more than my custom.

 We were deep in conversation when my own instincts flared and I saw the leatherworker suddenly start as though he had been hit with one of Viconia’s bolts of lightning. His eyes widened, staring over behind me at the mild press of workers and citizens going about their daily business and I twisted without thinking. A sound like tearing silk ripped through the air over the background noise of thousands of people and I found myself facing a strong, harsh faced Nord woman with a dagger of gleaming obsidian clenched in a tight fist.

 The craftsmen staggered away from my knife wielding assailant and in less than a second I realised that this was no simple robbery but an attempted assassination. She cut and sliced away at me with a suspicious and alarming dexterity and I found myself twisting and moving in the attempt to keep her at bay and to make an opening where I could draw Sunchild. Whoever she was, she was too experienced to let me arm myself with a weapon of superior make and reach than her own and kept close. She harried me with vicious attacks that left my cloak and clothing shredded in places and my skin intact only by the sturdy make of my chainmail.

 Despite my armoured form she was potentially deadly, stabbing whenever the opportunity presented itself in an effort to defeat my body’s armoured protection and never relenting in her attack. To lose the initiative in a fight against an armoured opponent was tantamount to suicide and she was determined to finish me quickly to not only stop me from being able to fight back but also before the screams and calls for assistance drew the city guard down on her. Her attempt to stab me in the back had been thwarted and there was a minute, if not less before her escape was cut off.

 Cutting and slicing with the obsidian dagger of a make I was all too familiar with I blocked with my armoured forearms, feeling the jarring impacts deep in the bones as I tried everything I could think of to fight back. Unable to draw any of my own weapons I began throwing punches and kicks trying to open a gap between us.

 Dressed in simple clothes and appearing like nothing more than an ordinary labourer like the hundreds of others in the city there was nothing other than the dagger that identified the woman. A face weather-beaten and lined with experiences rather than age, she would have been unnoticeable in a crowd. Cowskin pants laced up the sides of the legs were tucked into sturdy, mass produced boots covered in a fine layer of dust. A simple wool tunic was pulled taut by a belt and single button doublet covered her torso and her blond hair was fashioned into a series of braids that ran from her scalp to the shoulders. There was nothing to reveal the hard eyed assassin that lay underneath the plain, unassuming exterior as she tried to gut me with the gleaming blade.

 I lashed out and narrowly missed her, feeling the bouncing impact of the dagger once more on my arm and feeling a handful of links part. Her own confidence was building with every strike she managed to slip through my defences and while I was still armoured she was using every weakness to her advantage. A single, powerful strike from her free hand sent stars bursting in my eyes and my jaw exploding with pain as the punch struck home. Blood filled my mouth with an unfortunately all-too-familiar taste of copper and metal and I spat out a tooth knocked free from the hit. There was a grin plastered over the cultists face as she saw me scowl from the pain with teeth stained arterial pink, but the pain had merely sharpened my senses and started releasing something that neither of us really wanted set loose.

 My own punched rocked her back with a stunning blow delivered with such speed that her grin of triumph barely had time to be replaced with surprise. Nose broken and bleeding she staggered backward with the red liquid staining the front of her shirt, slicing with her dagger to keep me at bay while she regained her bearings. Chanting foully and gesturing with her free hand her body suddenly began disappearing under the familiar armour of the Mythic Dawn, spewing out from the pores of her skin and hiding her injured face from view. A longsword of corrupted daedric metal sprung to existence in her hand, complimenting her dagger with reach and providing her with nearly 80 centimetres of deadly edge capable of slicing through my armour like paper.

 There was nothing to be seen of her face behind the black, scowling mask but the sudden laughter from her was loud enough to be heard over the screams of panic from the dozens of people around us. Workers, labourers, citizens and shopkeepers backed away from the sight of the black armoured cultist facing me; the unnatural appearance of the conjured armour making it clearly evident that this was not a fight anyone wanted to be near.

 The laughter from her continued as she began slicing and twirling her twin weapons with remarkable ease, but the fight shifted suddenly as Sunchild appeared in my hand with a rasp of metal on leather and parried the first strike with a clang. It was obvious that I faced an experienced swordsman, the Mythic Dawn finally realising that to send someone after Viconia and I required more than just simple chaff to be cut down in our strides. Her slices and attacks were perfect, footwork expertly done and twice I found myself nearly losing grip on Sunchild as she tried to neatly disarm me. As good as a swordswoman she was, she had invested all of her skill and attention into my own weapon and was obviously used to sparring an armed opponent. As such she was totally unprepared as I stepped forward and engaged her with my free hand rather than relying on the blade.

 There was a crunch of metal and bone as I busted my knuckles on the strange metal of the mask, feeling the shattered cartilage of her face grind from the impact. Gasping and choking she staggered backward, blood suddenly frothing through the tiny slits of the mask and swinging her sword wildly. Metal clanged as I parried a desperate cut of her daedric blade, taking steps closer and backhanding her across the face again with enough force that she staggered backwards and fell onto her back.

 Involuntarily wailing with pain, the dagger dropped from trembling fingers as she raised the hand to ward off my punishing blows. The impact a metal on metal echoed above the screams and cries of alarm from those huddling masses around us as I kicked her in the chest, keeping her from regaining her balance and rising to her feet. Heavier, and now much stronger I took the iniative, kicking her hand in her sword arm and stomping on her hand until her broken fingers released the grip on the serrated weapon. Another kick left her winded, clutching at her wounded hands and moaning through the mask and being completely unable to resist as I grasped her by her armoured gorget, hauling her up and stabbing down with the point of Sunchild.

 The tug of fleshy resistance was short-lived as the blade sheared through daedric fabric and her mortal clothing underneath. Sliding the gleaming edge of Sunchild into the thinner part of her armour where the metal plates of the mask met the gorget and pauldrons I speared it deep into her chest. Her eyes widened, staring hopelessly at me as the blade continued its short, but quick passage between her throat and collarbone, not stopping until the hilt came to rest against her skin and the flood of gore. The tip of Sunchild was somewhere in the depths of her chest, the blood spurting out hot after slicing through throat, lungs, heart and guts in its passage.

 Her gasps and screams died with her, the gushing fountain of blood that washed out of the wound in her throat ceasing shortly after and leaving me with the strange yearning that always filled the core of my being when seeing and smelling blood. The hot coppery taste of blood in my mouth was only heightened by the amount of the stuff slowing to a trickle from her throat, a smell that could not be overpowered by the daedra-stink of her armour. I could feel myself salivating at the sight, until thankfully my attention was drawn to a new source of commotion making its way through the press of witnesses and onlookers to the fight and death in their midst.

 Alerted to the chaos in the tannery a handful of armoured guards came running, swords unsheathed and held in experienced, if somewhat nervous hands. They pushed and jostled their way through the crowds giving me and the dying assassin a wide berth, arriving just in time to see the woman finally succumb to her injuries and the horrid black plate start to dissolve from her flesh. The guards of Skingrad were quick and professional, ordering me to drop to my knees, place my weapons on the ground and remain still while they secured the area. Within minutes they had detained individuals as witnesses and efficiently went about their job of piecing together what had occurred.

 Even before the would-be assassin’s body had begun to cool I had been cleared of any wrongdoing. The young prefect in charge of this group of guards being told unanimously that the woman on the ground had attacked me without warning and had been intent on my murder. Everyone who had been asked from the crowd had spoken in my favour, stating that I had acted wholly in self-defence and while they were not overly happy about how a body had been left staining the cobblestones they were not going to press charges or throw me in dungeons. The fact that not only that dozens of people including themselves had seen the way she had been clad in daedric armour certainly helped.

 In less than an hour the guard covered the body with a cloak, set up a cordon to keep the gathering crowd at a respectable distance, asked the necessary questions and then let everyone to go about their business. For the most part it was almost like nothing untoward had occurred. Labourers went back to their jobs, deliveries were continued and bartering recommenced even if most were still unnerved at the death in their midst.

 The leatherworker and tanner were thankfully still close by and the pelt of the minotaur hadn’t been stolen or otherwise lost in the confusion. It took a lot less time that I was expecting to finish closing the deal with the two of them, their hearts were no longer in the trade after witnessing me almost casually slaying a would-be murderer with as much emotion as they would swatting a fly. After handing over a handful of silver and copper septims I left them to collect their thoughts and return to their occupations while I effectively vanished in the crowds outside of the tannery.

 Walking through the crowds gave me time to think and also to feel the swelling on my face from where the assassin had punched me. The gap in my mouth where one of my molars once sat was aggravating and I idly poked at it with my tongue and feeling the steady pulse of blood from the injury. My eye was starting to feel the swelling as well and I knew that the bruise would be livid by the time I returned to the chapterhouse. It irked me in a way that it was the first injury or scar that I had suffered that was an actual loss. All other injuries I had sustained over the years were scars across my skin and thankfully I had not lost a digit or eye or something worse during my time in the legion. The missing tooth felt almost as though it was the beginning of the end, and signified that perhaps from this point onward I would begin to lose parts of my body instead of receiving more scars instead.

 What was concerning me more however was the way I had fought. From the moment that I had turned and narrowly missed having a knife plunge between my ribs to stabbing her in the neck I had been completely emotionless. My heart had not raced, adrenaline didn’t make itself felt and not once did I feel as though I was labouring from the effort of the fight. I had not even started breathing heavily, nor felt any fear or concern while someone was actively attempting to take my life. Even as I stabbed deep into her flesh and took her life there was no remorse, no pity and not even the slightest feeling of regret or disgust with my actions. I had simply battered her into a pulp, and took her life without even a second glance or thought to the contrary.

 In the later seconds of the fight she had gone from a threat to being helpless and it didn’t hold me back in the slightest. I could have easily disarmed her, taken her as a prisoner to be handed over to the guard but instead I had taken her life. It chilled me to the core in the realisation that unlike the numerous times I had fought during my service to the Legion there had been no fear, no exhilaration or unease. Instead I was a hollow vessel with no emotions to fill it. Only when the vampire surfaced did the empty hollow of my soul become filled but instead of fear or terror it was instead filled with darkness, the cloying depths of hatred and the pleasure at taking lives and inflicting pain. Against the minotaurs I had felt something barely recognisable as wariness but there had been no fear. In the Mythic Dawn Shrine there had only been anger and rage, mixed with fear of Viconia’s safety that had filled me with the burning fury and the strange gratification of slaughtering dozens in the most brutal ways possible.

 There was little doubt in my mind that I was losing myself piece by piece. My soul was being dragged into darkness and there was nothing I could do to stop the increasingly rapid slid to damnation. What was beginning to terrify me however was that I was no longer sure whether I wanted to stop myself from going over the edge. I was beginning to enjoy the darkness and the power that it offered.

 Viconia was already at the chapterhouse by the time I arrived, sorting through a small collection of coins that represented more money than what I would’ve seen in a lifetime of legion savings. Her eyes were alight with the same strange glow that appeared whenever she looked upon wealth or trappings of power and influence, and I could see that she had spent some of the money already to gain better clothes.

 For the moment she was dressed in a central Nibeanese dress; a flowing garment of silk and silver threads that was completely at odds to the worn leather and chainmail she had worn for the previous months. Once again I felt the pang of the attraction I had for her suddenly knife me in the gut, seeing all too well that the flowing silk did nothing to hide her beauty and only seemed to accentuate it. A simple belt clinched it around her waist, and it hung freely from her shoulders, leaving her forearms bare and a short slit down the front revealed a considerable amount of cleavage. A strange sense of remorse filled me as the ghostly white trails of scarring could be seen across every inch of dark flesh, showing a networked history of pain that had been etched into skin.

 She looked up as I entered, the sound of the door and my booted footsteps on the stone floor announcing my presence. She caught my eyes in her wolf-like gaze which seemed to turn cunning and predatory for an instant before an alluring smile smothered it.

 “I was wondering when you would return.” Rising gracefully to her feet she floated over to me with her sandalled feet making no sound.

 As she moved closer she saw the red swelling of my jaw and eye and raised an eyebrow. “It seems that I can’t leave you to your own devices.”

 Reaching up she tilted my head to the side with the back of her hand, gazing over my fresh wounds. The touch and feel of her skin against mine almost made me sigh with pleasure but I clamped down and ground my teeth instead. There was no doubt that she was toying with me, even as she stepped back with an amused twinkle in her eyes and folded her arms.

 “I got into a fight.” My reply was simple and only made her pout slightly.

 “That much is obvious _dos’wael_. Was it anyone interesting?”

 “A cultist.” My grin was still somewhat shocking as my teeth still slightly pink with blood. “She tried to stab me in the back.”

 “And yet here you are darkening the doorway looking like you were struck in the face. They must’ve been incompetent or had terrible accuracy.”

 “Ha. She was a pretty good fighter actually. Got a few good hits in before I managed to finish it.” With my free hand I gestured to her as I placed the coins I had left over from my visit to the tannery on the table. “I see that you have managed to procure some new clothes.”

 She flicked her hair back slightly to get it from her eyes. “I grew tired of wearing those rags I have been stewing in for weeks. While we’re in town at least I thought I would wear something more comfortable instead.”

 The expression that filled her face was all challenge as though she was daring me to say something against her spending the money on non-essentials. Truth be told with the amount of wealth we had found ourselves in possession of I doubted that she would have been able to spend the entire amount in less than two days.

 “It… It looks good.” I stammered, feeling my heart suddenly racing. From the lack of emotion that I felt during a life-or-death battle this situation felt alien and left me feeling somewhat nauseous in comparison.

 Her smile grew broader in a combination of pleasure at my poorly attempted compliment and in an all-too-familiar expression of predatory hunger that I was becoming too accustomed to. It made me feel as though she was a spider and I was an insect stuck in her web for her amusement and appetite.

 “The dress? Or me?”

 The smell of the perfume she had applied was thickening the air around me and I suddenly found my mind wrapped in cobwebs. At that point anything would have been a welcome reprieve from my own nervousness and the growing lust consuming me. If an Oblivion Gate had opened outside the door at that very moment I would’ve thrown myself into it without hesitation.

 “Uh… Both?”

 She laughed, her voice suddenly musical and still managing to be sensuous. “You have such a way with women abbil. They must fall by their dozens at your feet.”

 “I have never been that lucky.” I replied half-jokingly.

 “Well, by what I have seen these past weeks on the surface I’m surprised and somewhat appalled at what you surfacers consider courtship. Powdered and perfumed, weighed down with wigs and cloth and not one using any form of skill or what little natural grace they were gifted with.”

 I suddenly found myself uncomfortably close to her as she stepped forward until she was less than a daggers length away. Fully clad in my armour and gaining a couple of centimetres in height from my leather boots she seemed so tiny and petite, almost appearing fragile until one saw the steel-like cords of muscle threading through her limbs. The scent of her flesh wrapped around me as I looked down into her yellow eyes, feeling my desire growing almost like that of my thirst for blood.

 “I have seen you look at women in our travels, but they have never seemed to have retained your attention for more than a glance.” Unbidden my enhanced senses suddenly allowed me to feel the warmth of her body, and hear the steady pulse of her heart beating in her chest as my nervousness was building more than just my desire. “There were times I wondered whether you were a eunuch or otherwise enfeebled but I have also seen the way you look at me.”

 A finger traced a pattern up my steel breastplate and despite the layers of greased leather, cloth, chainlink and steel I could have sworn I could feel the caress of her fingertip as it wove a pattern. “I know all too well how to stir your emotions and there are none in this world that deserve anything that you have to give.”

 For a heartbeat I felt sure that she was about to move even closer and kiss me, or touch me or do anything but instead the hand withdrew and she stepped away. Every nerve ending was aflame with overwhelming desire and couldn’t tell whether it was my nervousness, inexperience or self-control that kept me as unmoving as a statue.

 There was a moment of disappointment in her eyes before it became satisfaction, leaving her tapping a finger against her chin in thought. “Tidy yourself up abbil, and wipe that expression from your face. I don’t think it will be a good idea to show everyone that you are standing straight by drooling from both sides of your mouth at once.”

 Turning in a flurry of fabric and silk she scooped up the pile of coins into the tiny chest we had procured for our stay, looking over her shoulder to where I still stood dumbfounded. “I will see you for dinner. Don’t be late.”

 After she ghosted from the room with liquid grace and the door closed behind her alluring form I remained rooted to the floor. Thousands of thoughts were running through my head and I wrestled with them all. I had never felt so confused in my life and while I felt somewhat angry and insulted in the way that she teased and played with my emotions and feelings I couldn’t help yearning for more. My body and soul yearned with a clenching fire for even the hint of the slightest touch from my alluring companion.

 Instead, after finally collecting my thoughts sufficiently enough to be able to remember how to breathe properly I simply sat in a chair, staring into the wooden wall and trying to understand just exactly I had found myself in since deserting. The mood between Viconia and I bordered on outright flirting and some not-so-subtle teasing from her. Not knowing what to do I simply chose not to react, which in turn only seemed to encourage her to continue. It was maddening and in so many different ways I was finding myself being lost to the various changes eroding my soul and personality.

 The fortnight we remained in Skingrad became steadily more productive, receiving and fulfilling a handful of contracts in the local area. Each contract seemed to increase our growing fortunes despite our best efforts to spend some of it, and by the time we would have to move on we were both more suitable attired and prepared. New leathers and more expensive cloth covered our bodies, and each of us kept more comfortable attire for our stays in towns or cities. My hauberk had been repaired and adjusted to be more a second skin and to suit my physique as well as leaving the necessary space for when the vampire took over and filled my muscles with its strength.

 Viconia no longer dressed in what was comparatively rags to her beauty, instead even her armour had been chosen not only for its protection but the way it looked while she wore it. Every buckle, piece of cloth and chainlink was of the best quality that she had managed to procure and soon pieces of jewellery found its way into her possession. Rings, necklaces and a headband of Stirling silver soon became permanent decorations that only seemed to highlight her natural allure while not appearing ostentatious or making her a target for thieves.

 Several new contracts arrived fo the guild to fulfil and we found ourselves busy with clearing a nearby silver mine of goblins, rescuing a daughter of one of the town burghers and a few other minor errands that usually revolved around some form of animal control. Otherwise we trained and spent time around the city. Due to her interest in several of the books I had acquired I soon found myself teaching her to read what little I knew of ancient cyrodillic and Dunmeri. In return she began teaching me Drow; something that she seemed impressed with how quickly I managed to pick up the basics. Spending such time in close proximity did nothing for my confused feelings for her and the uncertainty of our relationship, but it was pleasant nonetheless.

 Over a week since our battle against the minotaurs Viconia and I were in the training yard outside the back of the chapterhouse. Skingrad was one of the most densely built cities in Cyrodiil; houses, taverns, workshops, chapels and all other types of buildings built up against each other with narrow alleys splitting them. There was no sense of an overgrown slum; every building had been erected to exacting specifications and every city street had been placed in the most economical of positions. In recent years the Count had governed with extreme adeptness, ensuring that no space was wasted in the city and that gardens and trees were placed in every conceivable position.

 The chapterhouse’s twenty-metre-wide training yard was bordered by several gardens of nearby houses and a tall, steel barred fence. For the few times that we had trained outside we had gained something of a following from a handful of locals who would stop for a few minutes to watch us. They would stand, leaning against the fence or in the case of the handful of curious children; pressing their faces between the bars to stare in amazement as we fought in a way that few could match.

 Viconia was lightning fast, each attack snaking out and only barely blocked or parried by my own blade. Whichever way, it was never an easy win for either of us for any of our sessions. From time to time I would find the tip or edge of her blade resting up against my throat, under an arm or lightly tapping against the inside of my thigh. The rare few occasions I would win she would find herself swept off her feet literally as I used my larger size and mass to take her down, or tap the point of Sunchild against her chest or throat.

 “Nicely done.” She said, as she allowed me to pick her up from where once again I had managed to grapple her and sweep her legs out from under her. “You have at least some form of skill.”

 “Do you think I would have survived this long if I didn’t have some ability?”

 “Ha. For the surface you have been a combination of skilful and exceedingly lucky.” She held Dragonbane out in front of her with a somewhat low guard, appearing deceptively open to attack. “But for the Underdark I would give you a life expectancy measured in days. Maybe a week at the most.”

 I swung Sunchild in a somewhat deceptive feint for her throat, watching as she simply swayed aside and didn’t even bother blocking or parrying. Instead she snaked out her own blade, forcing me to twist the slice into a sweeping downward strike that left both blades ringing. “Vvardenfell was not a walk through meadows.”

 “That I have no doubt.” The blade flashed again and again I found myself stepping back from her attacks that were always perfect at gaining the initiative. “But the Underdark was not for the weak, and although you are resourceful and strong you would be like a child to the followers of Lloth.”

 “I seem to be capable of holding my own against you.” With a grunt of effort, I forced her back with an ungentle punch to her stomach that left her briefly winded. The first time we had sparred I had pulled my punches and attacks in fear of hurting her. After the way she had beaten me bloody as ‘punishment’ I had soon realised that she saw it as a grave insult if we didn’t fight to the best of our abilities. Neither of us pulled punches and after our more serious of training sessions it was not unusual for us to be left bleeding from minor injuries such as cuts and gashes.

 “That you can.” She returned my punch with a spinning kick that used the momentum of her twisting away from my blade to smash me across the jaw. “But I am far from a trained drow warrior.”

 Spitting blood and shaking my head I looked over to her, feeling the worn cobblestones under my palms and knees. “You could’ve fooled me.”

 With a sinuous grace she strode over to where I knelt and watched as I staggered to my feet. “I am… I _was_ a priestess of the Spider Queen. While receiving some form of training in the martial arts it was not what we specialised in.”

 Sunchild gave birth to a handful of sparks as I dragged it from where it had lain. “I’ve seen the things you can do, and between both of us we have achieved things that should have been impossible.”

 With a twist of the wrist she flicked the humming edge of Sunchild away with a deft parry. “But you have your nature, I am just what I am.”

 Another series of blows filled the air with the sounds of clashing metal and ringing blades. “My nature is the only way that I can even contend with your skill and abilities. I am faster, stronger and more resilient than most mortals. Hell, it’s even letting me regrow lost teeth.” We staggered apart and I found myself idly I poking the space where the cultist had knocked out the tooth with the tip of my tongue, feeling the sharpness of a new one pushing through the gum. “It frightens me somewhat knowing that not only do your kind exist, but there is a way that they can reach the surface.”

 Her silence was deafening and for a moment she hesitated, her sword suddenly having the tiniest of trembles course through it. “The way I came here is not a path that others can follow.”

 Both of our guards lowered as we mutually ended the bout. Sunchild was returned to its scabbard as I handed her a waterskin filled from the city fountains and silence filled the air as we quenched our mutual thirsts. For several minutes we stood still, feeling the autumn breeze cooling the sweat on our skin and our hearts slowing their thunderous charges in our chests.

 My breathing returned to normal, and I wiped at the sweat trickling down my forehead as I watched her carefully stretch out her arms and legs. In the previous months it was rare that I would be left feeling the pain and exertion from the training sessions, and since my corruption it was only Viconia and Belisarius who were able to make me sweat. After drinking my fill I wandered near the edge of the training area, lazily swinging my arms and stretching out the tiny aches that heralded training cramps and concentrating on controlling my breathing. Some of our sessions had been lasting for a couple of hours at least the previous weeks, but as I prepared for another bout she sheathed Dragonbane and sat on the stairs, looking dangerously lost and frail for the first real time since meeting her. Unbidden I walked over to her, sitting close enough for support but not too close to make it uncomfortable for either of us.

 “I was a priestess of Lloth in Menzoberranzan, one of the few allowed in the Temple for the primary rites.” She said simply, looking down at the cracked cobblestones in between her feet while hunching over slightly. “Each house was represented with a single priestess and their matron, and only us few were allowed to perform the necessary sacrifices that Lloth demanded. I was house DeVir’s priestess. My mother was the house Matron.”

 All thoughts and queries that I had were put aside for the moment as Viconia began speaking of her home and family. This was not something that she had even mentioned or hinted at during our time together.

 “Our duties were surprisingly simple compared to the complex rituals that the acolytes of the Nine perform. There were no sermons, no hymns and no overly complicated steps that they had to follow. We would simply choose from the slave stocks or any recent prisoners taken by the soldiers, drag them into the temple and sacrifice them on the altar. Depending on what was demanded it could be as simple as cutting their throat or cutting their heart from their chest, or as difficult and as drawn out as slowly cutting them apart while keeping them alive for days.”

 The almost hidden tremor began to grow and I saw how she began to fret and fidget with her fingers as though she was pulling apart a piece of fabric one strand at a time. “One day, House DeVir was chosen for the daily sacrifice, a responsibility that fell to me to complete. The sacrifice this time was a young infant, weeks old at the most and for the first time I could not bring myself to do it. It wouldn’t have been the first time that I had killed the very young but there was something in me that simply refused to stab down with my dagger. I found myself frozen there, fighting against myself and being the first Drow in living memory to fail to complete Lloth’s bidding.”

 She sighed sharply and I was more chilled to the core not at her words but the way that she portrayed no emotion other than the tremble running through her. “Mother stepped forward, snatching the dagger from my hand and finished what I could not. Her rage was so terrible at me but it paled in comparison to Lloth’s indignation and wrath. The other houses present sensed my weakness, and the weakness of my House and over the coming days their plays for power would become ever present. Lloth withdrew her favour, and soon it was all out war between us and the dozens of minor houses within the city. Our slaves were captured or killed, our holdings burned and almost every drow in a position of power was killed or simply disappeared. My mother and I tried everything, using the last of the house’s influence and dwindling finances to undertake sacrifice after sacrifice but it was all for nought. Mobs were baying outside when mother decided that it was only my blood that would appease the Spider Goddess and she decided that only by sacrificing me would House DeVir survive.”

 “She obviously didn’t succeed then.” I added as humorously as I could manage.

 I was rewarded with a brief, short lived smile. “Yes. She failed. But not because of incompetence or through any actions of my own. At that moment I had given in to what I believed was my fate, and went willingly to the altar. Valas however, had different ideas.”

 “Valas?”

 Glistening with the tiniest amount of tears, her eyes glanced over to me before she suppressed her emotions once more. “Valas was my brother. He came for me right before the end, choosing to stand with me and against our mother and Lloth. He used what magic he could to free me, and even slew mother when she resisted. It was all for nothing however.”

 “What happened to him?”

 She leaned back on the stairs, looking up over the tiled rooftops of the buildings surrounding the training square. I knew that at that moment she was imagining how it would have looked if the sky was a towering ceiling of stone instead of a white-streaked ocean of blue. “Lloth happened. Her displeasure was so great that she came as House DeVir fell to the hordes. As he tried to protect me she cursed him without as much as a glance. Death is too little of a punishment to those who displease her, he was turned into a drider; cursed to live for the rest of his existence as a half-spider, half-drow aberration. He will live out the rest of his days trapped in a physical shell of a monster, unable to control himself and witness to all the horrors that he will wrought in Lloth’s name.”

 “And you?”

 Somehow her hand found my own and despite the darkness of her story I couldn’t help but feel pleasure at the sensation of her fingers intertwining with my own. Even when her grip made my knuckles creak from the vicing pressure.

 “They captured me. I do not know which house finally took me as their spoils but it was by Lloth’s decree that I was not to die. My punishment was to be kept alive for the whims of the goddess until she grew tired of me. I don’t remember or even know how long I was trapped in the slave pits, but the pain still remains fresh in the mind.”

 My mouth felt as though it was filled with cotton and I squeezed her hand in an awkward display of support. “In Cheydinhal I was told that there would be few within Tamriel who has suffered as you have.”

 “I doubt that even in the Underdark there are many who have experienced what I have. Beaten, branded, whipped, cut and broken. Each night I would be dropped into the slave pens as a toy for their desires, and every morning and evening my body would be made anew so that I was prepared for more hours of punishment. I do not know how long it went on for, it could have been years for all I know. I tried fighting back, begging for mercy, hiding and even letting them do to me whatever they wanted. Every day was some new creative means of punishing me and time no longer held any meaning.”

 “How did you escape?”

 She laughed for a second, before choking back a sob of pure emotion. The diamond hard personality was struggling for control now and emotions bubbled to the surface. “I didn’t.”

 Breathing out heavily she composed herself again, staring up into the sky and releasing the bear-trap like grip on my hand as she smoothed her hair back under her headband. “Lloth came to me one evening as I was left in a latrine pit. She was taunting, gloating. Telling me how she was no longer amused at my captors’ poor attempts to break me and had decided that a more suitable punishment was called for. She would gift me with my freedom, far from Menzoberranzan and far beyond the borders of the Drow city-states. I was to be set loose, exiled and cast far from anything and everything I knew.”

 “And so you found yourself on the surface.”

 “Indeed. This was to be my punishment, my unending curse to be trapped on the surface and cast adrift on the whims of those who believe to be my betters. To find myself burned during the day and hunted during the night. An unwanted stranger in a society inconceivably different to anything I had known. Everything that has happened to me since finding myself on the surface had been intended to be further punishment and torture of a subtler kind. Lloth intended on this being a cruel penance never before experienced by any of my kind. Since finding myself in that cell and being released into your care it has left me confused and unsure.”

 “Because I don’t beat and torture you?”

 Her eyes were serious again, no trace of the turmoil of emotions that had been here moments previously. “Because you treat me as an equal and are always fair in your dealings with me. There is nothing that you ask of me without providing something equal in return, and for that I thank you.”

 We had gravitated closer together as she told me her story and she was now almost as close to me as when I had carried her from the Mythic Dawn’s shrine. Hesitantly I had somehow found my hand resting on her shoulders, feeling the interwoven links of chainmail and the slight quiver coursing through the flesh underneath. The smell of her sweat, her hair and her flesh was intoxicating and I found myself being lost in her eyes as she looked at me. For a moment it felt like we were drawing closer together, our mutual heat beginning to merge in the evening sun until a voice called out the doorway of the chapterhouse.

 “Hello? Anyone here?”

 Both Viconia and I pulled apart as though struck, twisting around and there was the look of annoyance on Viconia’s face that matched my own.

 Opening the chapterhouse door from the inside a tall Breton came out into the courtyard and glanced between us. Seeing our expressions and the sudden haste as we moved apart he suddenly looked horrified, raising his hands in apology and giving a smile.

 “I’m sorry for interrupting. I was looking to see if anyone was at home.”

 “Well, we are.” Viconia stated with venom and a hint of indignation filling her voice.

 “I’m not intruding am I?” he stood there hesitantly, neither moving closer or further away while giving both of us equal amounts of his attention.

 “It’s fine.” I replied, suddenly feeling weary and rubbing at my temple and the soreness of my jaw where Viconia had kicked me earlier. “How can we help?”

 “I was just looking for someone to let them know that I had arrived and that I was going to stay the night. I’m an associate of sorts to the guild and I’ve found that it doesn’t pay to be rude.”

 I raised an eyebrow and he flushed slightly, looking at me directly “Speaking of which, introductions are in order. I’m Threnodir Melainis.”

 He grinned at us both, performing an elegant bow of a highborn noble from Highrock. “Adventurer, mercenary and Vampire Hunter.”


	14. The road to Anvil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not my best so I will apologise in advance for the reduced quality.
> 
> Non-graphic rape/non-con within this chapter.

Both Viconia and I stood in shook, staring at the middle-aged Breton as he rose from his bow. At first glance there was nothing about him that revealed him as a vampire hunter. His armour was sturdy, but commonplace among many within the guild. His clothes were well-worn and his weapons, while slightly unusual wouldn’t have rated a second glance from anyone. A thick coat of brigandine armour, studded with rivets locking the underlying steel plates under the leather outer surface protected his torso. Thick and unyielding, the bevor and collar arrangement of metal and softened leather covered every scrap of flesh from his jaw to his collarbone, and was the sturdiest piece of his equipment. It was a piece of armour that wouldn’t have appeared out of place on an armoured knight wearing a sallet or burgonet helm, but other than a simple padded coif of thick leather he was almost bareheaded.

 Both forearms were covered with solid steel vambraces, heavily battered from much close combat fighting and a pair of swords clung to both hips. One was a common steel rapier and the other an exquisitely forged longsword inlaid with silver. No shield or other protection was carried, but over his shoulder and attached to the travelling bag slung over his back was a shortened crossbow with pull-crank for rapid reloading and a quiver full of bolts.

 I did note that he was armed for more than just the usual assortment of foes that a member of the Guild or a travelling adventurer might face. Pouches filled with various bottles and other items were clad around his waist in similar fashion to my own, and a bandolier of knives were arrayed up his chest with their hilts pointing down on an angle for quick drawing. The thin leaf shapes of their blades and the loops in the end of the hilts revealed them to be throwing daggers of considerable make, especially with the gleaming hint of silver making itself visible inside the scabbards. A chain of silvery metal was rolled up neatly alongside his rapier and I could somehow tell through my enhanced senses that a handful of the tiny bottles within easy grip were filled with a manner of powders and ingredients that were various poisons mixed with silver shavings.

 He detected the sudden wariness from the both of us, his well experienced eyes seeing my sudden nervousness and the way that Viconia had instinctively dropped her hand to the hilt of Dragonbane at his announcement. Eyes narrowing for the moment he stopped in place, flashed a winning smile through a heavily waxed moustache before raising both hands again to allay our obvious concern.

 “Please, don’t be too worried. I may kill for coin on occasion but unless either of you are of the undead you have nothing to fear.”

 Carefully I returned the smile, Viconia staring at him dangerously while removing her hand from where it had begun tightening around the hilt of her sword. At that very moment I was thankful that we had been practicing outdoors in the sun otherwise our reactions may have been a little too suspicious for him if we had been indoors in the shadows.

 His smile was rakish and disarming, with his natural charisma being almost as deadly as the swords on his hips.  “I get this sort of reaction wherever I travel. Comes with the job description I’m afraid.”

 “I’m Kaius.” I said simply, thumping my fist against my armoured breastplate while Viconia continued staring at him.

 “Viconia DeVir.” She added, not making any movement, friendly or otherwise.

 For a moment he seemed to be deep in thought, before clapping his hands together and briskly shaking my hand. “By Arkay, the heroes of Kvatch? I had heard you had joined the Guild but I never actually expected to encounter you in my travels.”

 “We’re here for a few more days at least, until we’re called elsewhere, or the contracts dry up.”

 “Excellent. Here I was concerned about having to spend my time here in terrible company and even worse surroundings. But now at least I have found myself granted exceptional luck.” His smile was contagious and I found myself returning it honestly. “I don’t suppose it is too much to join you for dinner or for a glass or two of wine? In my travels I had managed to procure a bottle of Shadowbanish Wine and I fear it is a beast I am incapable of slaying on my own.”

 Viconia’s expression was impassive but she gave me a mild shrug when I looked over to her. Whatever moment we had pass between us had been snuffed out with this Hunter’s arrival and I doubted that it or something similar would appear for the days to come.

 With our introductions over after a brief chat the three of us went about our separate ways for the following hours. Viconia and I went to the chapterhouse’s bath and showers, revelling in the cold water sluicing through the city’s plumbing that allowed us to wash off the various collection of sweat, grime and blood from our training. Threnodir went about the process of finding a bunk to sleep for the night, unloading what few items he had carried with him in a collection of saddlebags and making himself comfortable and settled in for his short stay. After the few short hours of cleaning ourselves and preforming basic maintenance on our equipment the three of us ended up spending the evening together, telling stories and swapping tales of our exploits. Threnodir was highly accomplished, an expert with sword and crossbow and had made it his mission in life to hunt vampires.

 Appearing little more than a powdered dandy in his doublet and finely made silken trousers and riding boots he was nonetheless a match for many in the Blades in both skill and ability. Experienced fighting creatures faster, stronger and tougher than normal mortals he had the scars to prove it and from the look of some of the scars that covered his arms and face I knew that he had also been a duellist back in faraway Highrock. Every aspect of his persona had been tailored specifically to hunt the creatures of the darkness and shadows, from the silver inlaid longsword, to the pouches and bottles containing everything from silver flakes to scrolls of banishment and a crossbow small enough to reload quickly but powerful enough to fire quickly and still punch through armour.

 We told him stories of Kvatch, and our more recent encounter with the Minotaurs of Nonunaglo to which he was thoroughly impressed. He told us of the times he had hunted vampire covens in nearly every corner of Tamriel, from the far north of Skyrim on the borders of the sea of ghosts to the more magically adept beasts within the jewelled cities of the Summerset Isles. There was little land in Tamriel that had not left dirt clinging to his boots and I knew that it was men like him that would be my greatest of enemies if my true nature was discovered.

 “So, what brings you all the way to Skingrad?” Viconia asked after he finished a tale of how he had returned to Wayrest to hunt a creature posing as one of the Nobles in the city.

 “No hunt this time I’m afraid. In my travels I have heard of a weapon of great power against the bloodsuckers and my research and contacts have led me to believe that it resides somewhere in County Skingrad, or possibly in nearby County Glenvar.”

 “A weapon?” I refilled our glasses with more of the rich ruby liquid that I struggled not to think of as blood. The Wine was of an excellent vintage and the bottle alone was worth a considerable amount of money.

 Once more his trademark smile broke through and creased his goatee. “Have you ever heard of the tale of Maergalla and the _Light of Dawn_?”

 Both of us looked blankly at the hunter and he laughed. “Not many have unfortunately. The ultimate vampire slayer and his magnificent blade has been lost to the ages. I’m hoping to find it and put it back into use slaying the fiends.”

 “What sort of weapon is it?” Viconia’s eyes were suddenly light with interest as we listened to the hunter.

 “A sword, easily the length of a claymore or zweihander but curved like an akaviri katana. It’s is rumoured to be sharp enough to cut through anything but that isn’t what interests me.”

 “What does then?” the wine seemed to be filling my veins now with the alcoholic buzz and I knew that he had been watching how I had only been sipping on the wine. So far it appeared that he believed that I mostly abstaining due to my martial nature rather than keeping up my guard.

 “As the legends of the blade go, when it comes into contact with the corrupted blood of a vampire the blade shines as bright as the sun. In effect you cut one vampire with it, and all the others around it will be killed or at least wounded by the light.”

 “Sounds fanciful to me.” Viconia’s voice was filled with considerable scorn but she remained listening to him.

 “That it does, but most of the research I have undertaken makes me believe that there is at least a tiny amount of truth in the old tales. Some of the writing state that the Light of Dawn was forged by Telvanni wizard-lords in the second era but I believe it was made by the ancient Ayleids before the Alessian rebellions. Either way, the creators had something of a vampire plague going through the land and needed great weapons to combat against them. Their greatest of metalsmiths came together, acquired an enormous piece of Skymetal and imbued it with the power of Great Welkynd Stones. As the tale goes it was forged only at day, held with spells so that only the light of the noonday sun touched the blade during its construction and quenched it in water infused with the essence of Varla Stones. Only the Nine knows the truth in the tales or accuracy but I have also found information that although other weapons of similar make were fashioned, this particular blade was the pinnacle of their arts and skills.”

 “They forged other weapons as well?”

 “Oh yes my dear. A collection of similar swords were forged, but they were smaller in size due the lack of suitable skymetal available at the time. There are no hints of how many were made or even what they looked like, but I’d assume that they would look similar to other elven blades from that period in history. These other swords were to be the children of the dawn, and with them and the Light of Dawn they were able to save their lands from the undead menace.”

 “And here you find yourself, seeking this legendary sword?”

 “Indeed. My… _Contact_ … in the castle assures me that it is south east of here and I intent on finding it.”

 I raised my glass filled with ruby red wine. “A toast to your success then.”

 Viconia watched with interest as Threnodir and I clinked our glasses together before doing the same with hers. We continued talking through the early hours of the night and after we retired to our respective rooms I felt less on edge having such an individual resting a short distance down the hall. For over an hour I had quizzed him on his knowledge of vampiric lore, confirming most of what I had learned and learning a handful of techniques that would be of benefit if I faced any of my kind again.

 When I asked him on whether vampires could exist in sunlight he outright denied the existence of such an ability, and no craft or enchantment was known or ever rumoured of throughout all his travels. The dozens of creatures had slew had never shown any affinity to sunlight and there wasn’t even the slightest hint of such a thing being possible. It made me feel better in the fact that my secret would be easier to keep, but at the same time it worried me as I had no idea or clue of what sort of being I was or was becoming. This was a path that none before me had been known to travel and there was no telling what lay at the end of such a road.

 Our time in Skingrad was coming to an end and other than another two days of roaming the streets and training between ourselves there was little more for us to do. Other members of the guild began to arrive the morning after Threnodir’s arrival, the word of how poor some of the members were in ability and suitability having reached the ears of Modryn and Vilena. Soon the halls were beginning to feel full once more and not as abandoned as what they had the weeks previously. Within a day of the arrival of over a dozen other fighters, the few who had accompanied us to the village and failed to assist with the Minotaurs had completely vanished. Some had been forcibly relocated to other cities under more watchful eyes of guild seniors, while others had taken pages from Maglir’s book and had openly deserted the guild and their responsibilities.

 Threnodir stayed only a single night and until the late afternoon of the following day. While pleasant and charming he was not the sort of individual I wished to remain within close proximity. Although I was honestly saddened to see him bid his farewells I was also glad not to keep my guard up anymore. My discussions with him had proven fruitful in uncovering more of my own nature and working out better ways to keep myself hidden from society but he had been a clear reminder what fate awaited me if I was ever caught out.

 Viconia and I returned to our usual routines and so did the noticeable distance that we placed between each other, both in a physical and emotional sense. While closer than what we had ever been and beginning to relax to the point of flirting and teasing each other from time to time there was still the obvious barriers between us that had regrown slightly since Threnodir had announced himself in the training yard.

 Early in the morning on the 19th of Sun’s Dusk we departed the city, weaving our way through the rolling vineyards and wineries that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. Between Skingrad and Kvatch the Empire’s wines were made in almost industrial quantities and while some wineries were famous throughout Tamriel there were many unnamed vintages that were indistinguishable to their fellows. After travelling for hours and still not leaving the sprawling fields of vine trestles I could fully understand where the old saying of “ _being as difficult as finding a sober man in Skingrad_ ” had come from. If it wasn’t for the finely maintained aqueduct and fountain systems in the city, wine would’ve been easier, and cheaper to drink.

 It was nearly a full week’s journey from Skingrad to Anvil, a long, bone wearyingly distance that took us through the deserted and burned region around Kvatch. The lush vine filled floodplains of County Skingrad eventually shifted into the rolling and rocky vista of the Kvatch plateaus, filling the land with barely harvested wheat fields and cattle farms that were noticeably bare. Most locals had decided to travel away from the blasted ruins of what was once a proud city on top it’s spire of stone.  The smell of destruction still lingered over the area almost like the fine layer of ash and soot that had long since washed into the grasses and shrubs in the weeks since the siege. Although the ruins still stabbed into the sky like a broken, rotted molar there was obvious signs of life tenaciously holding onto existence and carving their lives into what little remained.

 What was once a populous trading city in a prime strategic location was a blasted husk like a cracked open tomb, but it would not remain that way for long. From every direction in the opposite of the original exodus of refugees; newcomers from throughout the Empire were making their way to the destroyed city with the promise of a new beginnings. In a steady trickle, dozens made their way there every day, and we found ourselves following the stream of trading caravans and colonists making their way to Kvatch.

 Halfway through our journey we stayed overnight in the ruins, being made welcome by the hundreds squatting in fire blasted homes and businesses that had been reclaimed from the devastation. Our identities were impossible to be kept secret and within minutes both Viconia and I were reconsidering staying in the city overnight as once again we found ourselves the centre of attention in a steadily growing celebration. Within hours of our arrival, alcohol was flowing freely and music began to echo through the rubble and deserted streets and we found ourselves the toast of the few thousands who were making this city their home. The central plaza in front of the Cathedral of Akatosh was the ad hoc central district of the city, and at any time the senior representatives of the city and the Legion could be found in their respective headquarters.

 Titus Mede; the young centurion whose cohort I had fought with in the retaking of the city was the senior officer and now commanded two full cohorts who were permanently stationed in the city for the foreseeable future. He and his men immediately made Viconia and I welcome and it wasn’t long before the grizzled Savlian Matius made his appearance as well. These two men were now the most powerful individuals in the county. Centurion Mede was the highest-ranking representative of the Legion since his Legate’s departure for County Anvil, and Savlain Matius by the decree of the Elder Council had been made Count until such time as they found a more suitable replacement. From what little conversations on the subject I had overheard it appeared that there were no nobles rising to the challenge to claim the shattered and burned city and the weakened county as their own. As a result, the ex-guard commander was left in a semi-permanent seat on the elder council, a signet ring hanging from the leather strap tied around his neck and the full weight and responsibility of a city that still stank of fire and sulphur.

 The celebration would continue into the early hours of the morning. What surprised us however was that it was apparently a daily occurrence for those undertaking the lengthy reclamation process of the city to party late into the night. All of those who had chosen to stay and the hundreds arriving every week would work from sunrise to sunset, demolishing ruins, and scavenging what they could before spending the evening drinking and celebrating life in all its forms. The level of death and destruction that surrounded everyone meant that the only two choices they had was to fall into the pit of bottomless despair, or instead find some reason to continue with their lives. Reports of other cities such as Ald’Rhun suffering similar fates only seemed to galvanise them further in their efforts to reclaim and rebuild and every day another street or building would be cleared, and scaffolds stabbed into the sky in random growths of wood and metal. Against all odds in a city where nine tenths of the population had died or fled and only one building out of every eight was still suitable for habitation, those who remained were making it their personal duties to scorn the daedra with every fresh brick laid into mortar.

 I found myself surrounded by Savlian Matius, Titus Mede and a handful of legionaries dressed in labourers clothing for the early hours of darkness, sharing pints of freshly brewed mead and beer. Somehow against all odds a single brewery had miraculously made it through the siege intact and had been responsible for ensuring that a large portion of the population were nursing hangovers every morning. Between the small group of us we had a healthy amount of alcohol to share between ourselves where one of the legionaries sat astride a barrel of mead, and it would be rare that our flagons would run dry.

 Viconia had initially disappeared, choosing her own company over that of myself and the hard-bitten soldiers of the Empire. It wasn’t long until I caught glimpses of her threading her way through the throng of dancers filling the plaza and causing the ground to spasm slightly in tune to the music. Over a dozen bards and musicians were playing enthusiastically, some in small groups where their voices and instruments played in sync, and others either directly competing against their fellows or providing individual tunes to the crowds. While our group sung along to whatever songs we knew or simply pounded our knees or feet into the ground to the beat I found myself entranced at the sight of my companion actively taking part in the growing numbers of dancers. She wore a flowing dress similar to the one that she habitually wore in Skingrad but this one was less revealing due to the cooler temperatures of the plateau.

 Strikingly lovely in the flickering torchlight, she danced and twirled with her elfin agility and outperformed professional dancers as she lost herself to the crowds and music that throbbed in the darkness. Each twirl and spin was perfect and I caught glimpses of smooth ebony flesh where the dress rose up and showed a substantial amount of her toned legs. From several metres away, the scars and old wounds were unnoticeable in the flickering light and it was obvious from the looks and increasing catcalls and whistles that I wasn’t the only one taking notice.

 “You might want to pick up your jaw there lad.” Savlian murmured through a raised flagon, choking with mirth as he saw my expression.

 The legionaries around me laughed and at least one hand left a stinging slap across my shoulder blades. I felt almost at home amongst these men and it was strangely enough to make me feel homesick for fort Ironhand.

 “I think it’d be better if I stopped looking instead.” I replied, twirling my skinning dagger in my fingers in a rippling motion that one of the nearby legionaries seemed more entranced in watching. “She’s like staring at the sun; after a while you’ll end up blinded.”

 There were further laughs from the group, especially how they knew that the statement was surprisingly accurate with her personality. Titus and I knocked our flagons together and knocked back further mouthfuls of potent brew but it was obvious that both of us were watching how much we consumed. While technically a superior officer he was obviously not one for remaining aloof from his men, and could be found deep in the shieldwall, working alongside his men with his sleeves rolled up or keeping up with even the hardest of drinkers. He was very close to my own age, but handled himself like a forty-year veteran and had the utter support of those under his command.

 “You have to be the luckiest bastard in the world to have her.” he said simply, grinning and swaying only the very slightest.

 “We travel together and watch each other’s backs.” My response was honest, and I again felt the strange clench of yearning deep in my belly. “We aren’t ‘together’ as such.”

 One of the legionaries looked over to me with a look of surprise plastered over his face. “I would question whether you had balls,” he slurred drunkenly, rolling his head between me and the sight of Viconia stirring the desire of every hot-blooded male in the crowd. “But anyone who willingly steps into Oblivion is no craven.”

 “Maybe she just needs a real man?” another spoke up, even more drunk than his brother-in-arms.

 “If you think you are real enough, you can be my guest.” My reply seemed to hang in the air for a few minutes as they all looked at me in shock but they hadn’t seen what I had. Ever since she had started dancing a few drunk individuals had been gravitating towards her, each building the courage to approach the gorgeous drow and all completely blind to the threat that such actions posed.

 I snorted into my mead as one grabbed her from behind in what he must’ve thought was a sure-fire way to win her over, his hands grasping in all the wrong places. There was a moment of shock that rippled through those closest to the two of them, accompanied by various hoots and snickers of amusement from the onlookers both in the crowd and where I was seated.

 For Viconia’s part there was the slightest moment where she froze at the intrusion of the man’s hands against her body but with a twirl she turned around to face him, staring into his eyes almost as though they were lovers of many years. There was a smile on her face as she wrapped an arm around his neck, sensually moving her body in time with the music and for a moment the rushing waves of jealousy nearly made me rise to my feet until I saw the look in her eyes.

 The stupefied expression of lust and success on the young man’s face was suddenly and violently removed as she rammed her forehead into his nose and twisting and jamming knees and fists into various parts of his anatomy. In less than a second he had gone from staring into her eyes, to flopping on the ground with a silent scream of agony, mouth gaping open and closed like a beached fish and unable to decide which damaged part of his body to grasp at. Instead he chose to curl into the fetal position, soaking himself in the sudden expanding pool of vomit as he voided the contents of his stomach.

 Myself and every other male who witnessed her reaction winced and quite a few of us instinctively clutched at ourselves protectively. The groper remained on the ground, those around him stepping away from his prone form and from Viconia’s obvious anger. She twisted away from the groaning individual, stepping over him like he was excrement on the stonework of the plaza and strode over to where I was seated with fury radiating from her like an aura.

 With a grin I looked over to the legionary and nodded in her direction. “You want to try?”

 He shook his head definitively and I laughed as she stomped over, ignoring the looks that she was receiving the entire way. I didn’t say a word, instead reaching over to the barrel, refilling my flagon and handing it over to her.

 “Why must everyone test my patience?” she asked as she sat down heavily on a barrel and knocked back a mouthful of mead.

 “The world is full of idiots.” Savlian replied, leaning back and grinning. “Although the Nine in their infinite wisdom have decided to spread them throughout the lands to ensure that we encounter a few every day.”

 There was a muted laughter from the group as they all thought of what she had just done to the fool who grabbed her. It was highly likely that it would be the last time that individual did anything similar for the rest of his life after nearly being castrated by her.

 “So what awaits you both in Anvil?” Titus tossed over a spare flagon that I caught neatly and refilled.

 “Guild business with the fighters. We’re travelling between cities and doing what we can.”

 “Hopefully nothing as exciting as the last time you both found yourselves in Kvatch.”

 “Hunting Minotaurs and goblins is somewhat quieter than fighting daedra.” Viconia’s expression was dark as she stared daggers in the direction of the twirling crowds.

 A legionary raised his mead in a toast. “I heard of your successful hunt. That was rather impressive.”

 “You heard about that already?” I glanced over my shoulder to where he too another mouthful before wiping his mouth on the back of a dusty sleeve.

 “Indeed. Killing a minotaur titan? That sort of news travels fast.”

 “Unfortunately, bad news seemed to travel faster.” Savlian replied soberly. “There is a lot of bad news as of late.”

 “Daedric invasions and cities burned to the ground. Banditry of the rise and provinces being wracked with unrest and insurrection.”

 “And everywhere the Legion stands idle.” Titus’ expression was sombre as he placed his flagon on the ground. “Not that every trouble can be solved by throwing the legion at it.”

 “Like what happened in Anvil.”

 My ears picked up at the sudden tone of voice from the legionary and I looked over the small group as they looked disheartened, some making various signs of the Nine with their free hands.

 “What happened in Anvil?” I asked, seeing Titus and Savlian glance between themselves and me.

 “News arrived this morning.” Savlian said briefly. “Apparently the Cathedral in Anvil was attacked. Casualties were heavy, and no one knows who was responsible or why it happened.”

 Titus had his sword out now was idly spinning the blade with the point on the stones at his feet. The tiny chiming of metal was audible over the increasingly boisterous crowds. “All the priests, the acolytes and anyone else present were apparently slaughtered like cattle and the shrine to Dibella was desecrated. By the time the guard arrived everyone was dead.”

 “And no one saw a thing.” The shrug that Titus gave me was half hearted and about the only time he had appeared unsure of anything. “Personally, it stinks of daedra but it doesn’t fit in with all this.”

 He gestured with an open hand to the ruins and I nodded. “Well, it definitely sounds like that we’ll be keeping ourselves busy there in any case.”

 “No rest for the wicked?” There was a chorus of laughs from the others as we clinked mugs and flagons together.

 Their words were troubling but in the light of the increasing daedric power and the overhanging end of the world approaching a single cathedral didn’t seem to be an overly large cause of concern. Darkness was slowly covering the lands of Tamriel but places like Kvatch were proving to be tiny pinpoints of light and hope despite everything.

 Viconia and I spent the night in the company of the legionaries and Savlian Matius, filling our bellies with mead and mass-produced alcohol and the roasted meat from one of the several spits that had been set up throughout the plaza. The festivities continued until shortly after midnight when everyone began retiring with a well-practiced routine in preparation of another day of back breaking labour. The legionaries were fulfilling both their military and civil roles in the burnt-out husk of the city; some would patrol the streets, direct traffic and escort caravans of supplies and trade goods to where they were needed. The rest could be found assisting the hundreds of other labourers as they went about their jobs of steadily reclaiming the city’s fire blasted districts. The Legions were not only responsible for keeping the peace and defeating the Empire’s enemies but were also the men and women who had been responsible for constructing nearly every road, highway, aqueduct and watchpost in Tamriel. The engineering skill of being able to build a fortified camp in the matter of hours was put to good use in demolishing and tearing down crumbled ruins, stacking mounds of salvaged building materials and clearing paths for the hundreds of others. Used to a harsh life, the dozens of legionaries were able to provide aid far beyond their few numbers; each soldier able to perform tasks and labours equal to four or five civilians through the daylight hours. Of a night they would drink themselves insensible, crawl into their bedding and awake with the dawn for another day of work and toil.

 Keeping ourselves with mostly clear heads come dawn, both Viconia and I rose with the sun and found ourselves bidding farewell to yet another group of individuals aware of our identities and fame. I doubted that I would ever be comfortable in being recognisable and there were many times where I wished I could fade into obscurity with as much ease as my vampiric ability of vanishing into the shadows.

 Leaving the blackened city behind us we rode down the winding highway to the west. Snaking through the outcroppings of rock and in some places punching through where teams of men had forcibly carved the highway’s passage we followed the cobblestones towards our destination. County Kvatch was sparse in comparison to the densely wooded forests of Chorrol and mountainous ranges of Bruma, but County Anvil was even more so. Rolling hills and small thickets of woods were scattered as far as the eye could see, and other than streams and creeks flowing south to the Strid River there was barely any break in the landscape. To the south the depths of Valenwood lingered just over the horizon, leaving the distance smeared with greenery on the opposite bank of the massive river when the road rose onto a hill high enough to see that far.

 Otherwise the Gold Coast seemed to live up to its name, everywhere autumn dried fields of grasses swayed in the breeze and the proximity between Valenwood and the Deserts of Hammerfell ensured that the temperatures rose and became slightly uncomfortable in our clothes and armour. Only during the cool of the evenings did we find ourselves comfortable, taking the time to shed a few of the layers to rest and I found myself dressed in just my leathers and chainmail for most of the journey.

 Each night we stayed indoors, paying for lodging at the coaching inns along the road and being thankful that we no longer had the issues with coin as what we had weeks previously. Each night we stayed in semi-comfortable beds, eating well from the collections of food but I was finding rest more and more difficult to acquire every evening. The thirst that I had so far managed to keep at bay for the past week since a short feed within the walls of Skingrad was growing ever more pressing and I knew that it would not be long before I would have to satiate it lest the beast rise to the surface and take control.

 Arriving at the Brina Cross Inn shortly after lunch we decided to stay the afternoon and evening rather than travelling the last handful of hours to reach the city. While the journey would have been short comparatively we decided against finishing it in the afternoon as it would have been well after dark by the time that we would arrive in the port city. We rested for the most part, making ourselves comfortable for the short stay and allowing me to have some time alone in the nearby wilderness.

 Under the guise of hunting some fresh meat for the inn I faded into the few copses of birch and waded through the waist high grasses of the hills throughout the area. Game was plentiful in the regions between the cities but the vast tracts of plains of County Anvil made hunting somewhat more difficult than other regions. Anything smaller than a deer could easily hide within the depths of the rolling grasslands and I was never one for hunting the birdlife, preferring boar or venison over pheasant or grouse. For a handful of hours I stalked through the region until the sight of the tall walled coaching inn faded over the rises, the sun beginning to lower over the horizon and cover the land with golden hues.

 Farms were rare, and only a handful of minor settlements could be found scattered throughout the county. Agriculturally poor, most of the wealth could be found on the coast where the bounty of the oceans could easily be attained. Fishing villages dotted most of the coastline, intermingled with various saltworks that produced sizable quantities of the mineral for packing and curing. A significant amount of the population was found within a few hundred metres of the Abecean Sea and only a few hundred braved the depths of the county.

 Finally coming across a small herd of hardy Colovion goats that without my vampiric senses I would’ve struggled to locate I managed to down one with a deep tanged broadhead. The impact of the arrow threw it to the ground bleating piteously and loud enough that I could hear it even without my vampiric hearing from two hundred yards away. The rest of the herd scattered it all directions, fleeing into the depths of the swaying grasses and vanishing, leaving the wounded one to finish bleeding out in the dusty soil.

 With my fresh kill draped over both shoulders, bow unstrung and in its leather carry case I strode through the grasses as they caressed my armoured thighs. Dressed in my chainmail and leather I was soon sweating in the autumn heat, the salt stinging my eyes and reminding me of the deep aches and creaking muscles of dragging the head of the minotaur lord for several kilometres. The goat, while heavier than my armour and equipment combined was barely enough to slow me down or even give me a sore back. As dusk began to drag the sun down towards the horizon I found myself breaking into a mild jog as the vampire embraced the gloom and lengthening shadows, my chainmail jingling across the flagstones of the highway as I made my way west back towards the tavern.

 At this hour there was little traffic on the road, the pounding of hooves absent as messengers and traveller alike began to prepare themselves for the evening ahead. Nearly all were settling indoors or putting the final preparations on their campsites if they found themselves too far from a tavern or stable.

 Steadily my armoured boots pounded into the surface of the road until my lungs finally began to tighten and the bouncing impacts of the goat carcass against my shoulder made themselves felt. For the most part the roads were deserted, which allowed me to chew away at the distance between myself and the inn but as I made it to the final stretch I had to slow my pace to a crawl as a single individual made her way the opposite direction. Normally the passing of strangers on the road was a frequent occurrence, but to come across a lone individual this close to evening, travelling in the opposite direction to the nearest tavern was enough to make me uneasy.

 Dressed in a finely made, but well-worn dress that flowed with every step I watched as she made her way down the road without the slightest concern with the descending night. The dress was ankle length and made for lengthy travels along the road, but did not appear as clothing that one may find on someone travelling by foot. A simple travellers bag was slung over a shoulder, fashioned like a handbag that was hanging by her hip and other than a simple dagger in its leather sheath she wore little else. My wariness was only further increased by the distinct lack of any other baggage or travelling items such as a bedroll or waterskin and while possible I found it difficult to believe that she was simply out for an evening stroll. No one in their right mind or without purpose would be alone and a handful of kilometres between the closest building at this hour.

 Moving towards her I studied her closely, seeing the determined expression as she stared at me and the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corners of her mouth as she looked at me. She was tall, finely featured and somewhat attractive in the way that all elves seemed to be. While not comparable to Viconia, the Altmer strolling down the road towards me was considerably good looking; long legs, luscious hips and a body that most men would not mind warming their beds for an evening. The level of arrogance, so typical of Altmer seemed to be infused into every gesture and step she made as the distance between us closed until we found ourselves with less than a handful of metres between us.

 “Good evening.” She said sweetly, looking me over and staring distastefully at the bloodless corpse of the goat slung over my shoulders.

 “Good evening.” I replied, feeling my arms tense from where they were holding onto the goats by the legs. Every instinct I had, both human and vampiric were screaming at me now and I was struggling to keep my face neutral, even as she drew her dagger with an experienced hand and smiled wickedly.

 Whatever thoughts were going through her mind it was obvious that she had mistaken the expression of weariness on my face as fear or surprise. “I'm afraid your journey ends here, traveller.”

 “Can’t a week go by without someone attempting to rob or stab me?” I muttered, not quiet loud enough for her to hear. The bones of my skull were tingling, and I pressed my mouth closed in a grimace to hide the fact that my incisors were beginning to lengthen.

 “I'll be taking whatever you're carrying.”

 “You have chosen the very worst person to rob.” I said simply, shifting my weight imperceptibly, and tightening my grip on the goat carcass even as she laughed.

 “This isn’t a usual robbery.” She replied, and a hovering spike of ice appeared in the palm of her hand with a simple gesture. Even from the distance of four metres I could feel the sudden shift in temperature as she called upon potent magicka. Whoever she was, she was a powerful mage and my unease grew stronger. “I do hope you have more on you than the last few had. They were most disappointing.”

 “And I hope that you will simply turn around and forget you ever saw me.” The beast was growing stronger now and its urges were not going to be simply crushed aside for much longer. In the gathering twilight she was unable to see how my jaw and brows began to tighten and skin grow as taut as a bowstring. “I can give you a head start, otherwise your life is forfeit.”

 “You really don’t understand the situation you are in… Do you fool? I am going to be taking everything of value you hold, and you of course be dead when that happens.”

 “Not if I kill you first.” My grin was ferocious and there was no mistaking the fact that my incisors had grown long and pointed even with the distance that separated us. The sudden look of fear that crossed her features was glorious to behold to my darker nature and for a moment her spell flickered as her concentration wavered.

 Mouth opening wide in horror she instinctively realised my true nature, flinging her hand forward she threw the magical spike of ice at me as though it was a throwing dagger. The frozen blade narrowly missed my chest as I twisted aside with unnatural speed, feeling the frigid passage flow over my exposed face even as I swung the goat in her direction.

 With a cry of surprise, she fell backwards when the full force of the thrown goat knocked her onto her rear. The level of horror and fear that was flowing from her pores was only inciting the beast consuming my sanity to push further from the depths of my soul. I could sense her heart beating in her chest, feel the panicking breaths as she dragged them into her lungs and hear the mumbled incantations as she struggled to call upon every ounce of magical ability to save her from me.

 A wave of frost and blasting ice flowed from her outstretched hand as she threw the goat off, and I felt the full force of the icy blast strike me right in the chest and send shivers through the core of my being. With the full force of a storm rolling in from the sea of Ghosts I felt my teeth chattering, even as I staggered forward with my head down as though I was simply marching head first into the heart of the storm. The level of power flowing from her fingertips was staggering and within seconds I was concerned for my chances. Sunchild was still tightly clasped in its sheath, the growing layers of frost crackling over my chainmail freezing it tight in the scabbard along with all my other blades. Each step suddenly became laborious as I had to physically tear the soles of my boots from the growing ice shards erupting and consuming the ground under me and the tingling of my jaw and skull was soon replaced with what felt like the onset of frostbite.

 The beast however was unconcerned like it always was with the difficulties of the flesh, instead flooding my muscles with warmth and unnatural strength that allowed me to simply batter my way through spells that had every right killing me in a single step. Scrabbling backwards one handed she roared her frustration and utter terror to the sky as I simply came on through the spell, armour cracking and sleet pouring from my leather and chainmail as I reached out with blackened talons and caught her hand.

 Shrieking in pain as well as overwhelming terror she struggled, pulling and trying desperately to free herself from the beartrap of a grip I had caught her hand in. What little control over her spells was soon gone as I crushed the fine bones of her hand and wrist, leaving her fingers broken and twisted even as she shrieked in utter agony.

 “ _You should have run_.” I growled, and through the haze of terror and pain she gazed into my face that was now wholly consumed by the daedric vampire. The horror on her elfin features was struggling through the pain as she grasped at her ruined hand, twitching away from me even as I drew myself even closer until my hot breath was rustling the hair framing her face.

 Releasing my grip on her mangled hand I gripped her tightly by the jaw until my talons drew tiny droplets of blood from her cheeks and throat. The fear in her eyes was intoxicating and my desire for her blood was thundering through my mind as I leant over her, running a tongue up the curves of her throat and tasting the tiny droplets of the ruby fluid leaking from the scratches. I could taste the sweat and lingering traces of excitement and arousal that she had felt leading up to what she had considered to be an easy mark and the eventual taking of a life. Like the beast controlling my actions she enjoyed death and inflicting pain on others but had never contemplated that one day that she might be on the receiving end of such actions.

 Shudders wracking her body, she soon realised that the beast would not be simply satiated with her blood. When my distorted lips pressed against her own and my tongue began snaking into her mouth, the sounds of her dress being shredded were lost to her screams of horror and realisation.

 

* * *

 

 

 Night had truly fallen by the time that I returned to the coaching inn, handing the slightly tenderised goat to the grateful inn owner who immediately went about gutting and cutting up the fresh meat for the evening meals. Viconia noted how that it had taken longer than what was considered usual to return with a fresh kill and I knew that she was fully aware of how I had managed to satiate my darker needs. While imperceptible to others, she was well used to how I carried myself after drinking blood, but this time my self-loathing and hatred was several degrees worse than I could have ever imagined. My vampiric nature was truly satiated with my actions that evening and I hated myself how I felt utterly satisfied and content.

 In vain I told myself that the woman had been deserving of what I had done, and despite the state I had left her in that she had been responsible for far worse in her time stalking the roads. The thoughts of how she had attempted to scrabble away screaming and crying as I tore away at her dress and violated her in every way imaginable filled me with an almost suicidal level of disgust and self-hatred. The intense feelings were only compounded by the way that I knew that I had enjoyed every second of it.

 Viconia and I ate in silence and her eyes bored into me as the evening progressed and my meal and drink remained unfinished and barely touched. For the most part I sat, staring off into space and lost in my own thoughts tumbling through my mind and I nearly jumped out of my skin when the door was slammed open by a panicking messenger. His nervous stammerings of coming across a woman on the side of the road a few short kilometres away, bloodied, ravaged but clinging to life filled the inn with uneasy murmurings. Viconia’s eyes had merely burned into my skull with far greater intensity than before, the expression on her face unreadable. Almost drained of blood, violated and left in a comatose state there would be little in the way of answers from the would-be bandit mage. Several of the patrons rose to the feet and left, heading out to assist the messenger in taking the bloodied woman to the city for healing, while the others who remained murmured amongst themselves about the increasing levels of lawlessness on the roads.

 Leaving the unfinished remains of my meal and drink I left the tavern and retired for the evening, pointedly not meeting Viconia’s eyes as they stared unceasingly into me. In amongst the self-loathing and hatred I tried not to think of the way that Viconia gazed at me; for it wasn’t an expression of fear or detestation but rather one of curiosity and a sense of pleasant surprise that curled the corners of her mouth.

 As soon as dawn rose we left the Brina Cross Inn, mounting our horses once more and travelling in silence and as quickly as we could from the area. My own fear of discovery and the regret at what I had done left me digging in the spurs until my steed was galloping down the road.

 Before us the Gold Coast stretched into the distance, spanning the space between the mouths of the Brena and Strid Rivers. Sparkling like emeralds, the depths of the Abecean sea shone in the morning’s light, stretching and consuming the horizon and merging with the golden ocean of grasses that flowed over the hills. Wispy clouds broke the sky in their fragments, swirling in from the south and west where the ancient home of the Altmer hid beyond the scope of any mortal vison. Such a distance between landmasses were only traversable by ships and as we made our way closer to the coastline and our destination such sights were increasingly common.

 As the gateway to the Empire and the largest port on the western shores of Hammerfell and Valenwood; Anvil was the beating heart of nautical trade for the Colovian Estates. Shaped in an enormous U of towering walls that thrust out into the water, the port-city was enormous and even made the Imperial Dock district on City Isle appear tiny in comparison. Dozens of enormous trading vessels could be found in the Anvil bay and the surrounding waters, and the city dockyards ensured that several more were added to their number every year. Every ship fed the city with wealth and as a result it was rich, powerful and the main trading port between Cyrodiil and the Summerset Isles. Ships from throughout the western Empire could be found here, sailing from Stros M’Kai, Daggerfall, Wayrest, and sometimes even Solitude in the far north from a long journey around the continent.

 From our saddles we could see the twinkling jewel of the enormous lighthouse on the south-western corner of the walls, and the squat but formidable castle built into the south-east. The lighthouse was a construction of elegance and ingenuity; the collections of mirrors and light enchantments allowing the enormous edifice to guide in the ships through the darkest nights and even some of the storms that plagued the region in the winter months. The castle was a besiegers worst nightmare. Thick and heavily sloped, the castle walls were impervious to siege engines and built solidly into the coastal waters of the Abecean Sea. With the tidal waters of the sea as a moat there would be no crossing or siege works capable of breaching it, and the long narrow causeway was easily defended by a few well-trained defenders.

 The city itself was well protected with its stout walls and towers, and despite the bay appearing open for an amphibious landing, any force seeking to do so would have to sail their ships through a gauntlet of missile fire. Over a third of the wall’s total length jutted into the water, their lower sections covered with muscles and urchins and along these sections enormous towers containing various engines of war were placed. Trebuchets, catapults and ballistae could hurl their deadly array of munitions into any attacker foolish enough to come within range, and any ship that dared to approach through the bay to land at the docks would be quickly smashed into kindling.

 Around the base of the walls, sprawling masses unable to find space inside built their own homes and businesses in the shadow of crenulations and weapons of war. While not as packed as cities such as Cheydinhal or the Imperial City, there was still a sizable collection of houses and workshops outside. Unlike other cities I noted that there was a distinct gap between the walls and their nearest outside buildings, a space thirty metres wide and kept permanently clear of all constructions to allow the guards and defenders a clear killing zone for bolts, arrows and thrown projectiles. There had not been a war in most provinces for decades, if not centuries and for the inhabitants of Cyrodiil such strategic measures were far from minds accustomed to peace and safety.

 Anvil itself was something of a jewel; wide city streets and clean gutters, houses showing the cultural amalgamation of the Redguards, Colovian and Bosmer of Valenwood. Flowers bloomed year-round in every garden, pot and windowsill due to the temperate climate. Shutters creaked and rusted open from the sea air and other than the smell of brine permanenting everything there was no hint that over a hundred and thirty thousand people lived within its open expanses. Skingrad, Bruma, Cheydinhal were all clustered hovels compared to the wide-open spaces and lovingly tended gardens of the port city.

 Due to my enforced pace we arrived well before noon, stabling our horses and making our way through the concentrated members of the city guard and the higher numbers of Imperial Tax collectors ensuring that no coin went unnoticed. My smile was darkly grim as they ensured that we were not smuggling any enforceable goods such as Dwemer artefacts, raw ebony and collections of void salts greater than forty grams. The influence of the Blades in the battle against the Mythic Dawn had now spread to all corners of the Empire and our mission to gain the support of the Fighter’s Guild was surely going to start paying dividends in the coming weeks.

 Trailing our way through the city we couldn’t help but feel the undercurrent of unrest and fear that was flowing through the crowds like a plague. Half caught conversations of the recent events in the cathedral and the destruction of cities at the claws of daedra travelled like wildfire and everywhere frightened glances were cast at all individuals who appeared as though they didn’t belong. Viconia and I were recipients to a large portion of the looks by being dressed in our worn leathers and jingling chainmail, festooned with weaponry and showing the scars for our journeys. Travelling adventurers and buccaneers were common within the city but for the most part they kept themselves to the Dock districts and the cheaper taverns and houses of ill-repute there. Most of the city’s trade relied on the travelling sailors and merchants from the western empire but for many of the permanent residents, travellers were treated with an ill grace like unwanted pets.

 The local guild was an opposite of the Skingrad and remined me greatly of Cheydinhal and the semi-professionalism of the members under Burz gro-Khash. Azzan, a solidly built Redguard who seemed to sleep in his steel plate led the three dozen members here and had spent his life sailing most of the waters of Tamriel. Choosing to spend the rest of his life on dryland but unable to retire to a life of peace and idleness he had instead found himself as the local guild commander. While mostly friendly, he was uncertain why we would’ve found our way to Anvil as it was one of the more smoothly operating Chapterhouses in Cyrodiil. Contracts were mostly plentiful, if a little on the cheap side. There was a distinct lack of threats in the region such as goblin tribes but there always seemed to be a ship travelling to Stros’Mkai, the Summerset Isles or south Valenwood that needed a few extra hands to deal with pirates. For the most part the local fighters escorted merchants and trade caravans along the Gold Road, performed the usual animal control for the rare cases of lions coming too close to civilisation and dealt with thieves and break ins where the guard failed to do anything. Some days they could even be found on the docks, assisting in the unloading of stores and supplies for some of the merchantmen for enough coins for a round or two in the evening.

 Viconia and I found ourselves settling in quickly, and after the dealings with the less-than reputable members of the Skingrad guild Anvil was almost a holiday. We trained, joined some of them in their various duties but otherwise it was a quiet and somewhat peaceful time. Anvil was somewhere I could enjoy living after my years in the frozen north, the temperatures, while enough to leave me sweating after any form of exertion were better than shivering under a bodyweight’s worth of furs.

 The first three days were uneventful, leaving both Viconia and I to our own devices for the most part. We assisted the guild in foiling a series of break-ins in one of the many trading posts in the docks district but otherwise we once again found ourselves exploring the streets and training. The city had a pall of death hanging low over it like a fog, the deaths within the Cathedral and the unholy nature of such an attack was more than enough to cause those in the city to fear of what may happen next. As far as we were able to discern over three dozen had lost their lives in whatever had happened and while rumours were as varied and wide spread as everyone’s opinions there were a handful of similarities between the tales. The central shrine to Dibella had been desecrated, the bodies of those unfortunates present during the event being used to daub runes and other blasphemes across every surface imaginable. What exactly had occurred was for the most part a mystery as the Countess had ordered the great doors to the chapel barred and closed to all but select members of the city guard.

 The situation was slowly worsening, and fights and other unrest was frequent on the streets. Tempers were high, moods low and despair was steadily snaking its blackened tendrils into the hearts of the populace. It was this situation that we found ourselves in and I too was struggling with the clutch of depression on the depths of my soul. The darkness of my vampiric nature and what I had done to that bandit on the Gold Road hung heavily on my mind, and there was nothing I could do to shake off the hatred I had for myself.

 Nearly a week after arriving at the city I sat uneasily in a chair in the dining hall of the chapterhouse, idly swishing a half-drunk flagon of weak beer that had long since grown stale. Viconia had been sitting across from me for the past hours since lunch but had her nose buried deep into a book for the entire time. The mood between us was sombre in comparison to Skingrad and especially so since our brief stay at the Brina Cross Inn. There was no doubt that she had an inkling of what had occurred that evening and there was a strange twisted series of emotions that bubbled to the surface whenever she looked at me. I couldn’t help but shiver at her cold yellow eyes as she looked at me with what was unmistakably pleasure and approval.

 “Whatever answers you are seeking won’t be found in the bottom of a cup.”

 Azzan strode over to us, his armoured footfalls sending tremors through the wooden floorboards and the table where I rested my feet. It was rare to see him outside of his plate armour, and even less likely to see his massive Warhammer further than a metre from him at any time.

 “I’m not seeking answers. Not today.” The flagon thumped to the table and Viconia looked up from the pages with a slight hint of annoyance.

 “Well, there isn’t much reason for sitting there looking all melancholic. You look as though someone took a shit in your sweetroll.”

 “I’ve just been thinking about the things that I have done.”

 He seemed to smile at that, dragging a chair over with a groaning shudder of wood before thumping down into it. “Ah, so an existential problem?”

 “Something like that.”

 Swiping the half filled flagon he tossed the liquid remnants into a nearby pot where some long neglected fern had long since given up on life. “Let me guess.” He said simply, pouring a fresh amount of the pungent beer from the pitcher before blowing the layer of froth off the top. “You are sitting here, looking utterly miserable because you are thinking back on all the things you have done and all the terrible crimes you have committed on the whims of some superior or for a handful of coin?”

 Glancing over to where he smiled with foam sticking to his rough beard I shrugged. “Yes and no. The shit that I have done in service to the legion was terrible and some still gives me nightmares but it doesn’t haunt me as such.”

 “Every soldier has nightmares and faces the terrors and darkness of their own souls. It is only those regret their actions who are haunted.”

 A spare flagon was not too gently shoved across the surface of the table in my direction and I caught it before it spilled its contents into my lap. “Do you have regrets?” I asked simply.

 There was a flash of pain in his eyes that was quickly stifled by the smile on his face. “More than the fleas on a dockyard whore’s crotch.”

 “And how do you live with it?”

 Leaning forward with the creaks of oiled leather and metal he looked me dead in the eye. “By trying to live a better life than what I have done. By doing everything that I can to help those who need it and not punish anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

 My arm stung as he gave it a friendly slap with a gauntleted palm. “That and copious amounts of booze.”

 Viconia lowered her book and looked at both of us. “You surfacers seem to have some strange ideas of what constitutes ‘morality.” Carefully she closed the book shut and sniffed lightly. “especially what you believe is _evil_.”

 She gestured to the book, and I saw that it was one of the many volumes detailing the long and ancient history of the various Cyrodilic Empires. “There is not that much difference between yourselves and the Drow when the thin veneer of civility is stripped away. Burning villages to destroy the food stores of the enemy army, inflicting scorched earth on your own lands to stop an invader? Slaughtering an entire town and putting it to the torch so that the others know that to stand against you risks more than just losing their lives? These are tactics well known to me and my kind.”

 “I think that Kaius here is discussing individuals and situations outside of war.”

 Her eyes flashed with anger and it was as though the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. “Life is war. War is about those doing whatever they can to win. Whether it be slaughtering a town of men, women and children, or cutting the throat of a downed adversary, those who do not do whatever they can to secure victory are not fit to continue breathing.”

 “You really do have a dark attitude in life Viconia.” I said simply, and she looked at me for a moment with annoyance before she realised I was not teasing or insulting her.

 There was another creak of metal as Azzan shrugged and took another swig of beer. “But she’s right though. By the Eight you haven’t seen what the Crowned and Forebears have done to each other, or what happened during the War of the Bend'r-Mahk.”

 “Aren’t you a little young to have seen what happened in that war?” I teased, and Azzan smiled.

 “I’m old enough where it counts.”

 “Are you two quite finished?” Viconia’s eyes were hard again, and both Azzan and I looked back in her direction.

 She swore something in Drow under her breath and briefly combed her hair with her fingers. “Everything we do is for victory and survival. If you find yourself in a fight, then you do anything you can to win. What you all consider to be darkness is nothing more than a tool to be used. Murder, is a tool. Fear is a tool. _Rape…_ ” her eyes burned holes into mine. “Is a tool.”

 “If someone assaults you, you remove their ability to do so again. If they strike you, then you strike them so hard and viciously that no one else will consider doing the same. You break them, gouge out their eyes, shatter their fingers, tear their guts out, raze their homes to the ground, poison the wells and burn everything into cinders. Until they are no longer a threat then you do not stop. An enemy with no will to fight is an enemy already beaten.” 

 Her eyes glowed with menace and I knew that there was a warning directed at me in their yellow depths.

 Azzan coughed slightly, looking between us looking somewhat concerned. “Remind me never to train with you Vic.”

 “I’ll pull my punches if you’re afraid.” The grin that grew on her face was one of predatory amusement I was all too familiar with.

 The three of us chuckled despite the dark nature of our conversation but before Azzan could reply a shudder flowed through the floor and up the soles of our boots. Glass rattled in window frames and drinks filled with ripples as an impressive boom rolled from the heavens. For a moment it was quiet, before every dog and animal within the city began crying distress into the sky, and the chorus of birds taking flight echoed from outside.

 “What in the name of the Eight was that?” Rising to his feet and placing the half-finished flagon onto the table Azzan looked about the room, mirroring our expression of confusion at the sound.

 “Is there a storm coming?” I asked, rising to my feet and unable to shake the sudden feeling of dread that was overwhelming my depression.

 “Not humid enough.” He replied simply, peering out of one of the few windows in the dining hall as I felt my hand tighten on the hilt of Sunchild instinctively. “Hopefully another whaler hasn’t exploded in the docks again.”

 One of the doors leading to the chapterhouse’s entry was suddenly kicked inwards with considerable force. Rhano, one of the Guild’s veterans slapped the door back from where it had bounced from the force he had opened it with. He was looking extremely pale for a Redguard.

 “What’s happened?” the expression on the younger Redguard’s face was all too apparent; Fear, gut churning and soul consuming fear.

 “The daedra are here!” he stammered, clutching at his chest from the short but panicky run he had just made. “An Oblivion Portal has opened outside the walls!”

 Viconia and I exchanged glances before mutually swearing loudly in drow.


	15. The Siege of Anvil

Azzan twisted around, his jovial expression changing into a mask of hatred and determination in seconds. He glanced between the two of us and Rhano, seeing the handful of other fighters appearing from other doorways as they heard the announcement. The level of horror, fear and shock at the words was evident on all our faces but within moments there was a flurry of activity.

 Bellowing orders on the top of his lungs, he strode through the hall as Viconia, myself and every guildsman present began hurriedly arming and armouring ourselves. My hauberk was shrugged over my shoulders and arms, shaking it into place with the jingling of metal as its comforting weight made itself felt. Pulling straps tight as quickly as I could I pulled the breastplate onto my chest, linking the armoured faulds covering my thighs to the breastplate and locking the pauldrons into their places. Vambraces, boots, greaves and every piece of armour that I owned was quickly attached to my body and as the growing din of screams, howls and thunder grew in intensity. Within minutes I found myself surrounded by two dozen similarly armed mercenaries and sellswords.

 Viconia, like me was dressed in every scrap of armour that she owned and standing before the towering form of Azzan as he hefted his enormous Warhammer in both hands. While I was more heavily armoured than what I had been since the fight against the Minotaurs, Azzan made me feel underdressed. A full suit of plate armour ensured that every inch of his body was covered with metal, and under that were layers of chainmail and padded leather. Easily weighing more than forty kilograms it was the sort of armour that Knights could’ve undertaken jousts in but he moved with little hindrance, looking over us all with a face framed by thick padded leather and encased in an open visored armet.

 “Right then. Let’s do this.”

 Turning on his heel he marched out the door, the Warhammer clasped in his hands and almost the full force of the Anvil Guild following. Viconia and I found ourselves following closely in his footsteps, most of the other members of the guild hanging back somewhat as we exited the chapterhouse’s front doors and found ourselves in the midst of a nightmare.

 Wracked with red and yellow savagery, the sky was tortured and roiling with ethereal clouds and crackling energies. Freshy ripped into our world, the upper sections of the roaring oblivion portal could be seen peeking over the walls and towers of the city’s main gatehouse. High above us, the streaks of clouds were being pushed and shredded by the ever-expanding shockwave of the portal’s explosive birth, leaving the churning energies of oblivion to darken the sky with unnatural twilight like the focused shadow of an eclipse.

 Screams echoed from the sprinting rush of panicking humanity, as hundreds fled from the unnatural maw of the portal beyond the walls and the death that it signified. In a trampling stampede of panic and terror, men, women and children pushed, shoved and beat at each other in an effort to flee deeper into the city to whatever safety they perceived throughout the press the cries of pain of those unlucky to fall beneath the stamping feet were lost to the maelstrom of noise. Every bell within the city tolled relentlessly, and the mournful howls of dogs added to the inescapable din with their cries of horror and instinctive awareness of what was coming. Birds of every kind and flocks of seagulls cawed, flapping in clouds of wings and feathers as they too fled to the south and the open ocean, choosing the emptiness of the sea to the unnatural rent in reality.

 The sight of so many heavily armoured and armed men and mer didn’t rate a mention to those fleeing from the walls and the city’s great gate. Instead our group appeared to be little more than a rock lodged in a stream. Those in front like Viconia, Azzan and myself were jostled and bumped by dozens of terrified civilians as we shouldered our way through the press. Roared orders from Azzan to clear a path and drowish epithets didn’t make the slightest impact to the hordes, but it wasn’t long before they began to thin and we found ourselves in the shadow of the primary gatehouse.

 A huddle of clearly terrified and nervous city guard were there, armed with polearms, swords, maces and crossbows and clearly wishing to be anywhere else. From the walls barked orders struggled to be heard over the sounds of screams from those unlucky enough to be caught outside, and hairs rose all over my body as the guttural roars and shrieks of daedra could be clearly discerned.

 The gatehouse had been slammed closed shortly after the terrible portal had breached Mundus, both gates grinding closed and the portcullises locking into place. Already those few guards on the walls were running back and forth, most wielding various hand cranking crossbows that they were aiming and firing over the parapet at the unseen foes. Enormous thumps of siege engines firing were felt rather than heard as the handful of engines situated with clear angles of attack hurled their missiles at the foe. Rocks from trebuchets, ballista bolts the size of saplings and oil filled pots were sent through the air, but from our position near the gate it was impossible to discern what effect they had.

 Together, our group of guildsmen joined up with the huddling cohort of mailed guardsmen, the sensation of fear being all too readily identifiable. While numerous and outnumbering the guild easily eighty to one, not all of the guard were on duty at the same time. The off duty members of the city guard would be scattered throughout the city, and it would take time before they could prepare and organise themselves. Even if the thousands-strong guard and the castle men-at-arms were fully deployed and ready for the sudden and surprise daedric assault, there were a rare few amongst their number that would have any form of combat experience. These were not the highly trained, professional soldiers of the Imperial Legion, but a collection of craftsmen and ordinary citizens banding together with the blessing of the Countess to help patrol their streets, arrest thieves and fight fires. The most combat or fighting most of them would have seen would be breaking up drunken brawls in the city taverns and the occasional bandit who was dumb enough to try to rob someone. They may have been well equipped from the castle stockpiles but their chainmailed surcoats were worn by increasingly scared men and women, and weapons held in sweaty, loosening grips of those suddenly faced with their own mortality.

 The commander of this cohort was barely old enough to shave, a face heavily scarred with acne and eyes wide and white with fear. As the lesser son of a local noble he would’ve been pressed into the service of the guard rather than entering the Legion where death was a much higher prospect. Now, he seemed to have been fated to lead the defence of an entire city against the baying hordes of Oblivion. The appearance of the entirety of the Fighters guild had bolstered his and his guards’ fighting spirits but it was still exceedingly close to the breaking point.

 “Commander.” Azzan said simply, striding over to the young man who was visibly trembling. The plate armoured form of the leader of the Fighters guild dwarfed him with his bulk and the teenager wilted in his presence.

 “Thank the gods you have come!” he stammered, the leaf shaped gladius in his hand shaking as he tried to sheath it unsuccessfully and nearly gashing his hand open in the process. “There seems to be so many outside the walls and it’s only a matter of time before they get in!”

 With the enormous lead filled head of the Warhammer over a shoulder Azzan raised his spare hand. “Woah, calm down. Everything’s going to be fine. The guild and I are here to help and we’re not going to let even one of these arse sucking fiends get past us.”

 “How can you be so sure?”

 Again Azzan grinned fiercely in the opened helm. “We have the Heroes of Kvatch with us.”

 The young guard commander followed the direction where Azzan had thrown a plated thumb, and soon Viconia and I found ourselves the centre of a sea of stupefied expressions from the huddled guards. Snatched whispers of shock and awe reached my ears over the cacophony of screams, bells and roars of the unnatural and once again I felt incredibly awkward at the recognition.

 “The Nine be praised.” The commander stammered, stepping forward and shaking our hands in a display of reverence that was only made stranger by the situation we were in.

 “How many men do you have?” I asked him simply, and he looked me in the eyes while bobbing his head relentlessly.

 “I’m not sure. Maybe a hundred?”

 “Any of them experienced in formations?” his head shook, causing a small amount of his coif to slip down in front of his eyes and I swore under my breath.

 Briefly glancing over to Azzan he simply shrugged and smiled grimly. Both of us were becoming more and more concerned with the situation, especially how both of us could now clearly hear the screeching of metal emanating from the outer section of the gatehouse.

 “Well then.” I stared at Azzan for a moment and raised an eyebrow.

 “I’ll leave this to you I think.” The smile on his face was returning to the savage expression of bloodlust. “I’ll lead the guild but I think you and Viconia might be better suited for the rest.”

“Great. Thanks a lot.” My reply forced a harsh bark of amusement from the Redguard Fighter but I knew that Viconia’s and my reputations would count for far more than his rank and position.

 Turning around I gazed across the collection of guards scattered before the gates, feeling a greater fear than I had ever experienced before at the sudden weight of responsibility. While somewhat used to command in the Legion, my rank of Praefect had ensured that I had never commanded more than squad of foresters. Suddenly faced with leading over ten times that number of ill-trained, inexperienced guards against the hordes of Oblivion did little for my confidence.

 “Soldiers of Anvil!” I roared, feeling every set of eyes turn and lock onto me with feverish intensity.

 Gesturing to myself and Viconia standing by my side with a grimace on her high boned features, I stood straight backed and tall. With a shiver of nostalgia, I suddenly found myself feeling as though I stood on the snowy training field of Fort Ironhand, looking over the latest batch of fresh-faced recruits.

 “I am Kaius Desin, and this is Viconia DeVir! You would have heard of us and know that we have faced this darkness before! This foe, this terrible enemy can be beaten! It can be defeated! We are proof of that, but we will need your help!”

 I had the attention of all the guards, fighters, members of the local Mages guild and even a small number of civilians who had come to help where all others had run. They were all beginning to cluster together in a small force that looked pitifully weak to my eyes, but represented possibly the only thing standing between Anvil and its utter destruction.

 “Together we need to stand against this daedric foe! You and those beside you are all that stands between Anvil becoming another Kvatch! Think of your families, your friends, your neighbours! They are relying on you to stand and fight! To hold the line and ensure that not one of these horrors gets by you!”

 With a scrape of metal on leather I drew Sunchild and held it high enough that all those before me could see its shining edge. “While I still breathe the city will not fall! Let these bastards come! We will teach them and their foul master that mortals will not lay down and die!”

 The mood was swelling slightly, confidence finding precarious holds on each fearful heart and allowing them to steel themselves somewhat against the coming storm of metal and death. I began barking orders, ordering the shuffling masses of citizens and soldiery into something resembling a rough formation. Those equipped with shields locked themselves into the first rank, the pointed kite shields bearing the Anvil County heraldry meshing together with those belonging to Fighters guild in their own riot of shapes, colours and designs. Swords, military picks, maces, truncheons, cleavers, flails and hammers made up the first rank while the second bristled in an array of pikes, halberds and billhooks in their vicious means of cleaving and piercing. Fewer in number, a handful of mages intermingled with those equipped with bows and crossbows, standing behind the dangerously thin ranks of guards and fighters as they too prepared to do their part in the coming battle.

 Viconia sidled up alongside me, close enough to reach out and touch but standing deathly still with Dragonbane unsheathed and ready. “I hope you realise that as soon as the battle looks lost I’m getting out of here.” She muttered, quietly enough that only I could hear.

 My face was impassive like a stone mask. “Trust me, if this goes to shit I’m going to be right beside you.”

 Becoming loud enough to be heard by mortal ears, the sounds within the gatehouse were growing in volume and were able to be discerned by everyone surrounding the towering doors. I could hear the crack-thump of crossbows and the heavier slaps of siege arbalests from within the gatehouse intermingling with the hissing of oil being dumped through the murderholes. Too soon to have been boiled to flesh scalding temperatures, the oil was being used in a more direct purpose. The building level of heat could be felt through the thick oaken doors as the oil was set alight on whatever was attempting to breach the gates.

 “Just how sturdy are those doors?” I muttered to Azzan, who like Viconia and I stood a handful of paces in front of the trembling ranks of terrified guards.

 Another ground shaking impact rocked the gates, shaking years of dirt and rust from the metal supports holding them all together. Azzan shared a glance with us before slapping his visor down, leaving his voice muted and strangely metallic. “Sixty centimetres of solid oak reinforced with steel?”

 I cursed, rolling my shoulders as the pounding increased in tempo and ferocity. “That’s what I thought.”

 In the space of a few minutes while we had gathered before the gates, the daedra had somehow managed to batter their way through the outer doors and the two metal portcullises. With the fourth and last portion of the gatehouse remaining we all watched in growing trepidation as the wood of the interior doors began splintering, the metal structural supports bending inwards from the impacts. The daedric roars emanating from within the gatehouse were swelling in volume, the level of unmatched bloodlust from the creatures from Oblivion increasing and terrifying all of us with the savage intent.

 Each impact that shook the gates caused the handful of Guards in the shield wall to shy away from the danger, and I found myself stomping back and forth along the thin ranks, bellowing for the men and women to stand firm. I couldn’t help but feel pity for those standing at my back, but at that point it time I was somehow feeling disgust at their cowardice. The skin of my face was tightening and with the increasing hold of the vampire on my mind I could feel the hatred of such petty emotions such as fear grow. Where I should’ve been gibbering and trembling in the face of my potential death, instead my mind was clear and cold, my heart barely even increasing its beat as all concern, unease and terror simply sloughed away.

 Buckling inwards, the gates gave way with a crash, chunks of wood and bent metal splattering onto the flagstones like hail as the daedra began pushing through. The cries of terror from behind was not lost to me, as even the vampire within my soul was taken aback at the sight of such creatures shouldering their way through the ruined gates.

 Half as tall again as myself, the creatures seemed to be somewhat small to be capable of the damage they were wreaking. Their scaled hides seemed impervious to the hail of crossbow bolts and the burning flood of oil coating the interior of the gatehouse. Roaring and growling they ripped into the wooden planks and shattered it in an unthinking frenzy to open the way into the heart of the city. Like hunchbacked crocodilians, hands twisted into parodies of men with talons as long as shortswords they forced their way through the collapsing gates, revealing the sight of a gatehouse sheeted in flame and filled with the baying multitudes of Oblivion.

 The enormous daedroth spread fear through the ranks of the defenders, the cries of alarm and gut-wrenching terror audible over the constant tolling of bells and the bellows of the scaled creatures. A handful of arrows and bolts snapped through the air from plucked bowstrings and nervous trigger fingers, but for the most part they simply twanged away or splintered on the thick hide of the daedric siege-beasts. Some lodged deep into their scaly bellies or the softer portions of their leathery jowls and the morale of the defenders was now hanging by a thread.

 Crackling with ethereal energies Viconia roared and hurled a stone-scorching blast of lightning into the face of one of the daedroth, causing it to shriek and groan with the impact. Spitting a mixture of drowish curses and incantations she threw bolt after bolt of magicka at the brutes, slowing them and their advance long enough for me to realise that if they reached the shieldwall the guards would shatter and flee.

 Roaring my own guttural battle cry that was incoherent and meaningless I threw myself forward, once again shuddering internally at how cold and unfeeling I was with the vampire’s influence. Against a horde coughed forth from the darkest depths of oblivion I should have felt some form of fear but instead I found myself almost relishing the challenge of slaying such creatures.

 A swipe of its enormous talons missed me by centimetres and Sunchild lashed out and grazed its palm, causing it to retract in pain and roar its displeasure at the minor wound. The beady reptilian eyes of the daedroth narrowed onto me as I dodged its clumsy attacks, feeling the wind from the blows buffering me but strangely enough I didn’t find myself concerned with its presence. After facing down the raw speed and stone pulverising strength of a minotaur lord, fighting a daedric reptile only a metre taller than myself seemed somewhat insignificant.

 It was proving far more resilient than the minotaur lord as its unnatural nature combined with the ebony like toughness of its hide ensured that most of my blows merely glanced off. For the moment at least it was being held back, blocking the hole in the ruined gates with its bulk while Azzan, Viconia and a handful of the other fighters and some of the mages assisted us. Standing tall over the shorter members of the city Guard, the black and silver robed Altmer who led the local Mages Guild strode forward with shimmers of light erupting from her fingers and eyes as she weaved intricate patterns in the air. Her skill was more focussed than Viconia’s and infinitely subtler as her robes revealed her ability and rank a master illusionist. Despite lacking the raw destructive potential of most battle wizards, her abilities were no less effective.

 Several times I rolled and dived aside to its powerful attacks, once feeling the pattering of stone chunks across my face and armour as it’s claws dug enormous furrows through the road with horrifying ease. The magicka and the spells the Wizard cast were soon making themselves felt and not just in the building tension headache in the back of my skull. Every few moments the creature would stop in place, the powerful paralytic spells locking its limbs and allowing me a second or more to stab and hack almost fruitlessly against its armoured hide. Other times it would stop, blinking confusedly after its eyes rolled into the back of its skull from a blinding spell or resisting the encroaching will of the Mage as she attempted to gain control over the beast.

 The scales of the daedroth were impenetrable to direct attacks but with my increasing speed and agility I was beginning to get the upper hand with the magical assistance from the Mage. Overlapping and twisting with every movement the impervious nature of the scales was soon defeated as I began stabbing and slicing up and under them. Hunks of flesh soon hung from its frame, daedric gore spraying the ground and in a movement born of hubris and all too much showmanship I leapt upon its back. In doing so I was suddenly revealed to all the defenders as I rode its shoulders for a handful of pounding heartbeats, swaying aside from its groping claws as it shook and twisted in its attempts to dislodge me. Gripping onto a spiny protrusion I hauled myself up, relying on my vampiric grace for a moment as I twisted Sunchild, holding the hilt firmly with both hands and spearing it between a set of overlapping scales on the back of the skull.

 Twitching, the daedroth smashed face first into the ruined cobblestones, Sunchild buried to the hilt in its tiny reptilian brain and leaving the crowd of onlookers astonished as I rose to my feet. The second creature had already been brought low by a combination of Viconia’s prowess with a blade, the magical assault of a handful of Mages and Azzan’s bone shattering hammer. Roaring with pain and anger the second daedroth had dropped to its knees as Azzan’s Warhammer ignored its impenetrable hide to shatter the bones of its legs into powder. A short stab of Dragonbane into its open gullet and through the roof of its enormous jaws and it had died as quickly as mine, leaving the hundred plus force of defenders staring in shock at how relatively simple we had cut the siege-beasts down.

 “ _Forward!_ ” I roared, standing on top of the daedroth’s armoured skull and thrusting my blood streaked sword toward the shattered gatehouse. The flames from the burning oil were dying now and was instead being filled with wall-to-wall daedra flesh. Scamps, the frilled lizards that I now knew as Clannfear and the usual assortment of dremora pushed forward through the last of the flames, stomping over the bodies of the fallen in the narrow passage with impunity. Rocks and crossbow bolts rained down through the arrow slits and murder holes in the roof, breaking bones, shattering skulls and impaling throats and faces with barbed tips.

 The daedric press was struggling to advance through the piling dead of their kin. Corpses made slippery with gore were crushed underfoot and tripped many in the press and now they were faced with a wall of steel and blades that were no longer as terrified as they were minutes ago.

 Strengthened at the sight of such terrifying creatures being brought low the guards and citizens of Anvil pushed forward, scraping their shields across the ground, thrusting forward with their polearms and firing crossbows at point blank range over the shoulders of the front ranks. Daedra died by the score as they tripped and slithered in the dead and wounded. Heads were cleaved, skulls crushed and limbs severed and despite the lack of training and ability the men and women of Anvil gave good accounts of themselves. In the suffocating confines of the gatehouse the guards, fighters, mages and ordinary citizens slaughtered and relieved all the fear, stress and horror of the previous weeks into the snarled visages of daedric horrors. All the hatred and sorrow that they had felt over the weeks since the destruction of Kvatch and the desecration of the Cathedral was now fuelling their limbs and lending strength to their hearts.

 I fought slightly ahead of the amateur shieldwall, hacking and slicing my way through flesh and armour that was pathetically easier than the toughened hide of the daedroths. Viconia, Azzan, and a handful of Mages and Fighters led the way alongside me through the hordes attempting to gain entrance. It was not long until we began fighting into the gatehouse itself like a group of swimmers fighting their way against the current. The mages were of the greatest of assistance as the more powerful of their number unleashed every ability at their disposal. Between the guild head’s ability with illusion magicka and one of her learned colleagues ability in the arts of conjuration, they confounded, paralysed, and turned daedra against each other or otherwise banished them and their corpses back to Oblivion. The creatures had to struggle over the mounds of their dead and dying kin, while the wizards and mages at our backs ensured that we simply strode across flagstones that were free of bodies. It was a potent combination that allowed the small number of us to counter attack through the gates and beyond the curtain walls.

 The fight didn’t go entirely all in our favour. Causalities were still high and every time I turned my head some member of the guild or the city guard was crippled or killed. I caught sight of one of the sword wielding guards being dragged from his place in the shieldwall, shrieking as a fanged clannfear flensed the skin from his face as it pulled him from the grasping hands of his comrades. Lost to the horde the man took a long time dying as we fought through to reach him but was too late to stop the creatures from worrying the flesh from his bones. Several defenders dropped shrieking as daedric blades chopped into flesh or maces shattered bones. Some were eviscerated by claws or teeth, others burned horribly from fireball hurling scamps or were simply pulled down into the morass of demons and ripped from limb to limb.

 The outer buildings were aflame or otherwise destroyed, corpses of the dozens, if not hundreds who were outside the walls when the gate opened were scattered everywhere. Some would remain unidentifiable, others all too easily recognisable by the friends and family by the way the daedra had toyed and tortured them before they died. In the hour since the gate opened the death toll was high, but now with the cohort of guards reinforced with members of the city guilds and ordinary citizens, not only were the hordes being thrown back but the gate itself was soon assaulted.

 Leading a motley band of individuals, Viconia and I directly assaulted the blazing Portal, hacking our way through the masses of creatures that spewed forth from its depths. Over a dozen of us entered, and while there were injuries nearly all of us made it back out alive. The young guard commander followed us every step of the way and while Viconia and I had managed to fight off a daedra lord like the one who I had fed on, he had managed to dislodge the burning Sigil Stone from its seat. Broken and severed, the fragile bonds connecting the two worlds ceased to exist and we were pulled into reality once more.

 As quickly as it had begun, the assault was over. Victory was ours, but the cost was still high for the city. Of the hundreds who had lived outside of the walls, most were dead or wounded, their houses and businesses damaged and nearly everyone knew of someone affected by the attack. It was hailed as a triumph, the defence of the city and the successful counter attack into the gate was soon to become the stuff of legends. All the handful of defenders who stood at the gate against the daedric hordes found themselves heroes and lauded by the population, and in the following days Azzan would have to start turning away many of the dozens of individuals interested in becoming guild members.

 Much to Viconia’s and my own annoyance our own parts in the battle were either greatly exaggerated, or unfortunately spoken about honestly. The way that we and the handful of guildsmen from the Mages and Fighter’s Guild had slew the daedroths and stood before the gates was soon spread throughout the city. It was a situation that wasn’t helped by the way that I had rallied the nervous guardsmen and practically led the defence of the entire city. Before a full day had passed Viconia, Azzan and all of those who survived the assault on the Oblivion Portal had been called to meet the Countess in the cathedral square in the eastern districts.

 There was a feeling of celebration like the spring festivals, garlands of flowers, streamers, ribbons and copious amount of alcohol being distributed to all. The Countess proclaimed a day of celebration for the victory over the daedra for every year hence, and after so much death and despair the citizens of the city threw themselves heartily into the festivities. Viconia and I discussed the idea of slinking away in the chaos, but our identities were too well known for any escape attempt. Instead we found ourselves marching with the surviving defenders, passing through the cheering crowds and feeling thoroughly uncomfortable and discomforted at the attention.

 At that point I had wished that I had drunk myself into insensibility. Walking through the crowds of hundreds lining the city streets and hanging from every window and lamppost was more terrifying than charging a nine foot crocodilian behemoth. The crowds were enormous, containing nearly every man, woman, child and traveller and shaking the ground with their roars of appreciation and celebration.

 Overall the ceremony, called as such for lack of a better term was over quickly and held very little in the way of formality. The Countess simply stood in front of her throne that had been carried out from the depths of the castle, resplendent in her priceless silks and four-metre-long train that covered the ground behind her. Full of regal grace and civility in comparison to the rough and battered members of the city guard and guildsmen she was like a polished gemstone in amongst a pile of broken granite shards. One by one she walked along the thin ranks of individuals who stood or knelt in various forms of acknowledgment of her rank and position, handing out gifts and symbols of favour. Each item was as varied as the individuals they were handed to, some were as simple as amulets bearing the heraldry of Anvil County and the Umbranox lineage, others were priceless weapons and other artefacts from the depths of the castle vaults. When she made her way to where Viconia and I stood she stopped, looking over the two of us with something resembling awe threatening to break through the regal exterior.

 “Viconia DeVir, and Kaius Desin.” She had said simply, looking over to us with the gaggle of courtiers and servants hovering behind her. “I honour you for your bravery and service to my city. The people, and myself owe you a debt of gratitude that a simple token cannot repay.”

 A smile creased her aging features as she gestured for a pair of her servants to step forward with satin cushions held firmly in their hands. Upon each were a pair of beautifully forged cuirasses, black as the night and embossed with spiralling patterns of vines tracing their way up from the overlapping plackard and faulds to the shoulders. Immaculately made, with the only sign of damage being the dent in the sternum where their makers had tested their effectiveness they were almost more works of art than protection. For a moment I felt as though they were simple ceremonial pieces by the way the servants carried them, but under closer inspection I openly gaped at the materials used in their creation. While a deep matt black on the outer surface; the interior had been polished to a mirror sheen of the white-silver of mithril. They were lightweight, surprisingly thin but incredibly sturdy since they consisted of a combination of the two strongest metals known to the Empire. Ebony had somehow hammered and forged onto the outer layers, and then carved with an artisan’s care into intricate patterns that didn’t reduce their effectiveness. Between the mithril and the ebony layers there were few weapons that could hope to penetrate such armour.

 With amazement and in front of the crowds the courtiers and servants moved forward, unstrapping our armour and replacing them with the ebony-mithril cuirasses. I felt myself being tugged this way and that as they strapped them firm against the rest of my armour and clothing, and once they stepped back I marvelled at how light the armour felt. It was as though they had been fashioned specifically for us and I resisted the urge to tap at the breastplate with my knuckles to check that it wasn’t a dream.

 “Great heroes need great armour.” The smile on her face was honest as she moved between us, looking over the way the cuirassiers clung to our bodies. “I have also commissioned the armourers of the city, including my own personal smith to fashion you something truly unique and fitting for your deeds. The hides of the great creatures you slew in defence of my city will serve you well in the coming days.”

 The roars of the crowd drowned out our responses and both Viconia and I were struck dumb by the sheer intensity of it. The rumbles of Red Mountain had nothing on the cheers of a hundred thousand people, and we had to stand and be buffeted by the volume. Thankfully the ceremony was over quickly, allowing us to disappear into the depths of the guild Chapterhouse and away from the dozens of individuals. Both Viconia and I marvelled over our new armour, the immaculate craftsmanship inherent in every millimetre of beautifully forged metal. They were incalculably old, perfectly maintained and while light enough for us to move to the best of our abilities they provided protection that was unsurpassed.

 In the days that followed and for the fortnight that we stayed in the city we were kept busy. The guild received numerous more contracts with the increased fame but the devastation brought its own set of challenges. The dead had to be identified and buried by grieving friends and relatives and damage had to be repaired. Within the first week the gatehouse had been cleared and it wasn’t long before the sounds of pounding metal from smithies echoed through the city as a pair of new portcullises were forged. The doors would take a longer time to replace, suitable wood would have to be located but unlike most cities in the Empire, Anvil had a ready source of such  wood available. Enormous planks were left stacked around the docks all year round in preparation for being made into keels of new sea going vessels, and while there was a lot to choose from the wood would have to be suitably dried before being hammered together into new gates.

 The death toll had been high. Of the cohort who had followed us through the gates, over half had died or had suffered terrible wounds that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. The guild was down a fifth of its members, and hundreds of civilians and commoners had died outside the walls. There had been other deaths in the wake of the attack including those few unfortunates who had been run down in the streets in the panic. In the stampede of individuals fleeing from the daedra there were some who had slipped and crushed under dozens of stamping feet.

 The funerals lasted over a week. Night and day the mournful howls from loved ones and pealing of church bells could be heard and despite the initial celebrations the cold sobriety of loss returned. Reeling from the dual blows of the cathedral’s desecration and the daedric siege, darkness had returned once more to the inhabitants of Anvil. Not allowing themselves to be lost in the depths of sorrow they were steeling themselves for the coming storm and unlike the rest of the Empire they were now taking the threat of Oblivion seriously. Guards began appearing on the streets in greater numbers, the number of recruits looking to join their ranks or the guild suddenly exploding. Azzan received several contracts from the castle and Guard Commander for guildsmen to train the current and future guardsmen of the city. The hard-won lesson of their inexperience in a real battle leading those in power to rectify the issue. As the blacksmiths of the city soon turned their trade to fashioning arms and armour, the clanging of training or the stamping of marching feet was growing more obvious by the day.

 For our part, Viconia and I found ourselves the toast of the city whenever we emerged from the chapterhouse, which we both soon decided to do as little as possible. From time to time though we completed the ever increasing contracts that the guild was receiving, removing a few of the opportunistic bandits in the area or simply assisting in clearing the bodies of the dead. Thieves were caught, muggers taken care of and in the darkness of the evenings I managed to slake my thirst where it arose.

 Over a fortnight after our arrival we were once again presenting ourselves in front of the Countess and her entourage. This time however was a much simpler affair within the main hall of the castle and witnessed by only a few individuals. Since the siege, the armourers and leatherworkers of the city had combined their skills together, even calling upon the skills of Carahil and her fellow mages in their task. Together they all had managed to skin the bodies of the Daedroths to create truly matchless armours.

 After the fellmongers scraped away individual scales from the chest, back and arms of the creatures, the mages had imbued them with potent enchantments to ensure that the remains would never dissipate back to the infernal realm. Once enchanted, the most experienced smiths and armourers in the city had individually riveted each scale to an underlaying layer of moonstone chainmail; another gift from the castle armoury. Lightweight but still strong enough to hold the daedroth scales, the moonstone’s unique properties combined with the design of the interlocking links would allow the physical force of blows to be more evenly distributed. Combined with the daedroth scales and the breastplates the armour provided us with greater protection than eighty kilograms of tournament plate.

 Each scale was twice the size of a thumbnail, overlapping and interlocking in a solid suit that covered our entire torsos from collar to mid-thigh and our arms down to the elbows. Individually sized and adjusted to our own frames, the chainmail and scale haubergeons felt surprisingly light and weighed considerably less than our previous steel and leather suits. Overall we had lost almost ten kilograms of total weight from our armour and equipment and fully dressed I felt light enough to leap into the sky and drag down a cloud. Between the Countess’s blacksmith Orrin, and the city’s master smith Varel Morvayn they had truly outdone themselves; their work more akin to art than armour. Viconia and I ensured that we acquired further pieces of armour from them, replacing and repairing our greaves, boots, vambraces and pauldrons until our armour alone was worth more than some tracts of land.

 Our time in Anvil came to an end although our stay had been lengthened by almost a full week to receive our gifted suits of armour. Both Viconia and I stood perceptibly taller now, our declared statuses as Champions of the city filling us with pride even as we attempted to hide from the fame. The word of us closing not only one, but two oblivion portals would have travelled throughout the Empire and the other tales such as the minotaur hunt and contracts within the guild was very quickly making us legends.

 Successful in our mission to Anvil, we once more returned to the road after hiring new steeds after our previous ones had been counted among the dead of the siege. Our journey gaining support of the guild was now taking us to the far south of Cyrodiil, and with winter now upon us it was not something I could complain about. Anvil was pleasant enough with its yearlong temperate climate but snows were still possible on the odd occasions. Bravil and Leyawiin still awaited us so we saddled up our new rides, and began the fortnight long trek to the Niben valley.

 We stayed in coaching inns and taverns along the way, bypassing Kvatch during the middle of the day due to the faster pace we travelled at. Within a week we once again returned to Skingrad, staying for a couple of nights to ease the aches and pains of the journey from our bodies and acquire further provisions. The month since my brief fight with the cultist at the tannery had allowed the fellmongers to turn the minotaur titan’s hide into the goods that I had requested, and the brief stopover in the city allowed me to retrieve the order. Now our unique and immaculate armours were joined with further clothes and items of enduring quality, the thick hide of the minotaur now worn by us in the forms of gloves, hoods, cloaks and sturdy boots. The dark grey leather blended in with the green-brown deadroth scales, and blackened plates of our armour and the lightweight nature and colouring still allowed us to move with little hindrance. Where before we appeared little more than down-on-our-luck sellswords or highwaymen, we now looked every inch of the heroes we were known as.

 Walking through the streets our unusual appearances turned heads long enough for our identities to be discerned and while for the most part this was limited to gasps and whispers between people there were still many who approached us in something resembling religious reverence. No matter how thickly the crowds gathered we seemed to be able to make our way through with no impediment, a gap appearing before us through a combination of fear and admiration.

 During our brief stay in the city we mostly relaxed and killed time, gathering further supplies of arrows and rations for the journey to the rainforests and marshes of the Niben. Every precaution was taken and somewhat as a result we decided to lighten our pouches of valuables.

 Four of our pouches had still been filled with a considerable number of gemstones and other valuables taken from the minotaur’s lair. I knew that while Viconia loved being in proximity to such wealth it made me increasingly uncomfortable. With our growing fame it would not be long before individuals would begin to try their luck with us in various challenges, and once the word or rumour of our wealth begins to spread we would have further complications. As a result we soon found ourselves the owners of one of the richest and expansive manors within the city, complete with furnishings and even hiring one of the local maids on a permanent basis as caretaker. Our lives on the road meant that it was highly unlikely for us to stay there in any permanent capacity and while it was almost bought on a whim, both of us felt more secure in the fact that we were down to a single pouch of valuables.

 Rosethorn hall was a grand manor built in an old central Colovian style, stately and cosy despite the immense cost. There was enough room for a family of six to live comfortably with a section set aside specifically as the servants quarters. Eyja; our hired maid would have the manor to herself for the most part and before we continued on our journey I ensured that she had been paid almost two years in wages. After living semi-rough for the past years and coming highly recommended from all that we spoke to, neither Viconia and I were concerned for her trustworthiness. For the most part she seemed eager to please not only for fear of losing such a lucrative job but our reputations worked in our favour as a pair of individuals not to be crossed in any way.

 Checking into the local guild during our stay allowed us to pick up a further contract along the road to Bravil. Glenvar County to the east between Skingrad and Bravil had been experiencing mysterious disappearances within its population. Sparsely populated, and only containing a handful of villages and towns, Glenvar was little more than wilderness where the forests of the West Weald met the rainforests and marshes of County Bravil. Tiny hamlets such as Pell’s Gate and Glenvar Village were the only real locations of civilisation outside of a handful of Legion Forts and Castle Glenvar itself.

 Separated by a two lengthy days travel, Glenvar was a tidy little village nestled at the base of the hill where the Castle squatted and held the region in its stony grip. One of the few castles or forts in Cyrodiil that was not a Legion post; the Castle was well known to be incredibly defensible and rumoured to be unconquerable. Poor compared to the larger counties it was still welcoming despite the building distrust of strangers after the disappearances and the growing threat of Oblivion. Riding into town in the early hours of the night we managed to secure lodgings in the Faregyl Inn, choosing it over the closer but more ominously named “Inn of Ill Omen”. Despite the disappearances and the slowly decreasing amount of traffic on the roads since the Emperor’s assassination there were little rooms to be had, leaving Viconia and I once again sharing a single room.

 Up on the second level of the tavern, the hall was lined with doors but each room was barely three metres wide and four long. There was enough space for a single bed and straw mattress, a table and chairs arrangement and a travellers’ chest for short and long term storage. For the first evening we simply dumped our excess equipment and saddlebags, waiting for the following day for beginning the investigation into the missing villagers.

 So far from the larger cities, the sway of superstition was stronger than science and fact and as such we found it increasingly difficult to get solid answers. Yes, people had been disappearing for the past few weeks. No, there hadn’t been any signs of ogres, goblins, trolls or other creatures of the wilds in the region for months. For the most part the disappearances had been those who had wandered or had been travelling alone on the roads during the night. On the surface it would’ve appeared as though the increasing number of bandits and highway throughout Cyrodiil were to blame but there had been at least two cases where individuals in the outer buildings and farms had vanished from within their homes. There were no signs of struggles, nothing to show for the fact that two dozen individuals of varied ages and professions had simply ceased to exist.

 My own ability for tracking turned up nothing, a situation not helped by the fact that the last disappearance had been over a fortnight before. One of the young children of a farmer had gone to draw water for the evening bath from the stream leading from the base of the cliff where the castle was built and had instead vanished in the night. The bucket she had taken was found sitting a few metres away from the water’s edge, and that was the only sign that she had been present.

 The locals were understandably fearful, barring their doors of a night and hanging various herbs, ribbons and blessed items from doorframes and windows in various attempts to keep evil at bay. The amount of times that I had bumped my head on the cloves of garlic and hourglass hanging from the ceiling just inside the tavern’s door was leaving a mild bruise in the middle of my forehead. The garlic was supposedly protection from creatures of the night such as vampires which my mere presence made a mockery of, and the hourglass was supposedly a talisman for seeking Akatosh’s protection. Neither of which I had much faith in their supposed benefits, and there were an increasing number of the locals with similar ideas to my own who carried various weapons at all times. Too poor for swords or smith-forged equipment, most carried something as simple as a hatchet or woodsman’s axe, others keeping various knives tucked into their belts or a spear or agricultural equipment on their backs.

 Viconia’s and my presences were met with mixed reactions. While our reputations had reached even this backwater of the Empire, the fact that we were with the Fighter’s guild only seemed to confirm to the locals that there was indeed something rotten in the county. By the end of the first day it was almost like we were being called out to see and investigate every noise and movement in the entire region. Between my growing annoyance of the locals and the lack of any suitable leads I was in a foul mood when I returned to the tavern, once again bumping my forehead on the bottom of the hourglass as I made my way up the stairs to our shared room.

 Viconia had returned the hour previously to wash off today’s accumulated dust and grime, and she looked up at me as I entered after knocking gently. She had changed into her travelling clothes, leaving her armour unfastened and placed neatly along the table that we had jammed into the corner to provide space for my bedroll along the floor.

 “Discovered that hourglass again did you?” She asked, seeing how I was absently rubbing at my forehead.

 “Yeah. Maybe at next smithy we come across I should invest in a helmet.”

 Sitting on the edge of the bed she smiled slightly, leaned forward and watched as I began stripping my armour. My new minotaur cloak was unfastened and draped from the hook on the back of the door along with my hood and mask before shedding my bandolier and pouches. Next came the breastplate, pauldrons, and faulds that made a neat pile of mithril, ebony, steel and leather in the chair before I came to the struggle that was the Daedroth scale chainmail. Thankfully its light weight compared to regular chainmail made it easy to slide off but for the most part it still left me grunting and cursing as I lifted it over my head and arms.

 Left in nothing but my tunic, chainmail chausses, greaves and boots I suddenly felt lighter and uncomfortably exposed. After shedding the armour that I had worn every day and nearly every night for the past fortnight I almost felt naked.

 Sunchild and its scabbard was placed up against the table where Viconia’s effects had been arrayed in perfect order, and as I turned I saw the strange expression on her face. She sat, one knee raised with her foot on the bed, hands folded over her knee and chin resting on top of them. Staring into space she had begun curling herself into a ball even while trying not to appear to be doing so.

 “Viconia?” carefully I stepped forward, bending down slightly to look into her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

 The wolf-yellow irises and widened pupils darted up into mine and I could almost feel the turmoil of emotions running through her. There was the slightest tremble of emotion running through her limbs and enough fear in her eyes that I suddenly felt myself tensing as though expecting a fight.

 “Wait.” Her voice was tiny and lacking the usual confidence and strength that usually filled every word as she choked them out. “If... If you would please sit with me for a moment I would be thankful. I am not eager to be alone right now.”

 I moved carefully over to her, sitting down onto the edge of the bed but still leaving a sizable gap between us. It creaked under my weight and shifted her slightly higher as my bulk crushed the hay a fraction more. The fear now was a bitter taste on the edge of my tongue and unbidden the vampire had risen to lend me its enhanced senses. I could hear the crowd in the dining room below us, hear crickets as the sun fully set outside and the faint snorting of stock animals in the various pens and pastures scattered around the community. The fire blazed away softly in the inn’s fireplace, warding off the creeping cold of winter despite how far south we were. Owls called out to their own kind within the trees of the surrounding forests and dozens of kilometres away I could hear the lonely howl of a male wolf calling to its mate.

 There was nothing untoward in the entire region but Viconia was still sitting beside me, trembling slightly and lost in the depths of her own mind and emotions. Unthinking, and with no other idea of what to do I reached over, putting a hand on her shoulder with what little pressure I dared and preparing myself to snatch it away if needed.

 Instead she suddenly moved, shifting her weight on the bed and closing the distance between us. My hand found itself on her opposite shoulder to me, wrapping around her petite frame while she gripped my other hand so tightly that I felt my knuckles crunch together.

 Her natural perfume was overwhelming, the scent of her skin and hair coiling around me like the shadows of the flickering lantern hanging from the wall. My every instinct was smothered with the feeling of her proximity and the touch of her shoulder and hand under my own. No longer appearing strong and unyielding as the mountains she instead felt diminutive as her wide opened eyes darted around the room at even the slightest hint of movement.

 "Are you all right?" I asked, looking down on her while my concern was building immeasurably with every second. The shaking of her body was welling up from deep within the core of her being and after facing down cultists, minotaurs and the worst oblivion could throw at us, her fear was the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced.  

 Wordlessly, she looked up into my eyes, and I found myself lost in their yellow depths. There was moisture there, the tiniest hint of tears building in the corners and I tore at the interior at my mind at how I didn’t understand what was happening, nor what I could do to help her.

 The weight of her head rested into my shoulder for a moment and I couldn’t help but feel the guilty pleasure at such proximity. Her shivers were building despite how I tried to wrap my entire left arm around her in a poor attempt at comforting her fears. She simply looked up at me wordlessly, gripping my right hand in her own across the top of her thighs and a sorrowful expression consuming her from within.

 Without warning her free hand reached up, caressing the side of my face before drawing me down in such a way I was completely caught off guard. Even before I could react she had drawn us together, locking her lips on mine and losing the both of us to the intimacy of the kiss. I could feel every fluttery breath in her chest, the steady beat of her heart coursing blood through her veins and for that moment in time there were nothing else in the universe but the feeling of her lips on mine, tongues moving together, her fingers on my skin and the coiling smell of her perfume floating around me.

 As quickly as the kiss had begun it had ended, having lasted only for a heartbeat and for eras as the same time. Sitting in silence and still holding each other we stared into each other’s eyes with only a few centimetres space between us. Every perfect angle of her face was visible to me, the shoulder length hair free and tickling my arm as it cascaded down with only a few burrs and tangles despite our travels. There was a moment where I thought she would draw me back down for an even more passionate kiss but the sudden pounding on the door soon put that idea to rest.

 Closing my eyes with a grimace of complete and utter annoyance that was perfectly mirrored by her own, I slowly withdrew my arm from around her shoulders. For a moment I stared at the door, wishing and willing for whoever it was who had interrupted the moment to go away, fall off the edge of the earth or be consumed by a daedra. Anything that would send them away from the moment that they had inadvertently ruined.

 “Master Desin? Miss DeVir?”

 Cursing every god and daedra in existence in the back of my mind I carefully stood up, seeing my own anger reflected in Viconia’s expression. The way that I pulled Sunchild from its resting place against the table was not lost on her as I stomped over to the door, tearing it open with enough force that the young farmhand standing on the other side jumped back in shock.

 “What is it?” I growled. The young teen on the other side of the door darted his wide eyes from my thunderous expression, to the visible scars on my bare flesh and the way that I held Sunchild by the middle of its scabbard as though I would strike him with it.

 “T-the Aedile has r-requested that y-you come at once.” He stammered, taking a step backwards and looking ever more fearful as the bed creaked behind me as Viconia rose to her feet.

 Her voice was cold and bitter as she walked over to the door. “This better be important.”

 “A b-body has been found.”

 Both Viconia and I stopped in mid breath, briefly glancing at each other as the very last of the moment was yet again lost to the whims of fate. In a heartbeat both of us had gone from annoyed, anxious and concerned to deathly focussed. Quickly and wordlessly we gathered our cloaks and hoods, strapping our swords to our sides but leaving most of our armour behind in our rush.

 Exiting the tavern and into the village streets we found ourselves part of the growing gathering of people from throughout the village. Lit by torches now that night had properly fallen, the flickering orange glow set the expressions of fear and concern on everyone’s faces in stark contrasts of golden hues and deepening shadows.

 “Do you suppose that it will always be like this?” Viconia’s voice had lost the tremble of uncertainty and anxiety but there was still the slightest hint of it hiding within her.

 “What do you mean?” The crowds parted in our passage and my cloak billowed around me as I moved, blending me into the darkness with its deep grey-black colouring. She followed close behind as we were led by the teenager, looking about at the growing numbers of villagers.

 There was a soft sigh from behind my shoulder and I glanced back to see her brush her hair back and hold it there with her silver headband.

 “The two of us, out adventuring within the world. Fighting evil and not having a home to call our own.”

 “This is not really something that is forced on us forever.” I replied honestly and somewhat surprising myself. “Do you yearn for something different?”

 Near the edge of the village where the carved flagstones of the highway gave way for the smaller, locally produced cobblestones there was a cluster of individuals leading on a snorting bullock as it pulled a flatbed wagon behind it. The shouts and cries were building with every metre it was pulled further into the village, and we had to start shouldering our way through the press.

 “I am not entirely sure. Ever since I was banished from the Underdark I have not known anywhere that I could call home. For now I shall be content in the travelling, and the exploring of the world. But there will always be part of me that yearns for home.”

 I smiled at her over my shoulder, managing to push through and lay a hand on the side of the wagon, gesturing to the bullock’s driver to stop. “Yearning for ‘ _a_ ’ home, or yearning for ‘ _your_ ’ home?”

 Her mouth curled up in the familiar smile that never failed to send shivers down my spine “A bit of both actually.”

 “I have never really had a home to call my own since I was a child. Perhaps the day will come where we remedy our mutual problem.”

 Scrambling up the side of the wagon, she walked over and leant against the raised sides, peering into where I stood over the blanket and the mass that it covered.

 “Your friendship is worth so much to me, and it is not something that I am accustomed to.” She rested a hand on my bare forearm as I hunched down to lift the blanket and I found myself lost once more in her golden eyes. “Thank you.”

 “You are welcome Viconia.” The butterflies in my stomach I told myself were due to the apprehension of what lay under the blanket and not the emotions I could see in her expression. For a moment I enjoyed the touch of her hand on my flesh, before gripping the woollen layers and hauling it up and revealing what lay underneath.

 The stench immediately assailed my nostrils and I felt somewhat queasy to see where the blanket had clung to the sticky gore that coated it. Over a day old, the corpse had lain in the Winter sun which thankfully was the only reason why decay and flies hadn’t colonised it already. Terrible rents covered the torso and arms and the armour that it was clad in hadn’t done much in protecting its wearer. Finger sized chunks of steel plates had been torn out of the leather brigandine, most having been snapped, cut or broken into pieces from incredible blows. The pink of flesh poked through the shreds of leather and cloth, blood having flowed freely and coating the outer layer of the man’s armour in gore which had turned black and tacky in the sun.

 “Stendarr have mercy.” I murmured as the dozens around us pulled away from the horrific sight, the cries of shock and revulsion at the sight of such an end enough to leave several vomiting in the gutters. It wasn’t the wounds that caused me to mutter the most basic of prayers; but the fact that Viconia and I knew the individual.

 His fancy clothes were ruined with a combination of blood and other undefinable materials, the pouches of exotic ingredients shredded and their contents lost. Both sheathes were empty of their swords, but the broken handle of an exquisite rapier was still lodged where it had been jammed into his side. No quiver of bolts, crossbow or travellers pack were strapped to his back, and the thickened bevor of metal around the throat had long since been lost.

 Hunched down over his corpse I stared into the wide-open eyes of Threnodir Melainis and perceiving the terror that had sustained him in the last seconds of his life. With building trepidation I stared blankly, feeling the churning apprehension growing at the sight of a single pair of punctures in the flesh of his throat where his killer had completely drained him of blood.


	16. Light through the Darkness

Threnodir Melainis had not died easily. Both gloves were shredded from where he had attempted to fight off his foe, defensive wounds from talons and fangs that pushed deep into his palms. Even the thick armoured vambraces that covered his arms from elbow to wrist were buckled and broken, the crumples forming the shape of fingers where something of impossible strength had crushed his arms in a grip stronger than steel. The throat wounds clearly showed that one of the fiends that he had hunted had managed to transform the hunter into prey, but there were signs that he had given his best before the end. Finely ground into the clothes were grey ashes that had been smeared by the blood that had sprayed from his wounds, showing that whatever creatures had bested him, one of them had died before he did.

 There were little of his personal effects left on his person. Nearly everything that we had seen him wearing in Skingrad had been destroyed or was otherwise missing. Even the small collection of rings, both mundane and enchanted were missing after someone had gone to the effort of pulling them off. The creature or creatures that had killed him had seen fit to loot his corpse of any valuables and with some distaste I rummaged through pockets and pouches looking for further clues.

 Gathering around in the flickering torchlight the number of villagers increased despite the terrible sight of the dead man in the back of the wagon. The disappearances that had been haunting the region had now been given a terrible face to represent them, one that permanently revealed the nature of the threat they faced. The mutterings that I could hear in the crowd showed that I was not the only one who had noticed or identified the wounds in his throat, and the level of fear was growing exponentially.

 “Well, at least we know why people are going missing.” Viconia stated flatly and I nodded.

 “Yep. And on top of that, _it_ or _they_ or _however many_ there are, seem dangerous enough to kill a hunter of their kind.” I continued my patting down of pockets and pouches on Threnodir’s body, finding little of note except for a tiny leather bound book stuffed down the front of his shirt that was mostly intact. “That doesn’t bode well.”

 “What are you going to do?” one of the villagers standing near us called out to a chorus of similar questions.

 “We’re going to wait until morning.” Standing carefully on the rocking wagon I jumped down onto the cobblestones and looked around the sea of fearful faces and terrified eyes. “Then we’re going to work out where this fiend, or fiend _s_ are hiding and kill them.”

 “Just like that?”

 “Just like that.” My grin was made even more horrible in the flickering torchlight. “Only a fool hunts vampires at night. At least during the day we can find their home and kill them while they sleep.”

 I stood taller, looking over the tops of the crowd’s heads and raising my voice until they all could hear me. “Return to your homes, and look to your loved ones. Come morning, we will finish this.”

 The current of fear flowing through the village was easily detectable but there was the slightest glimmers of hope amongst the populace. From the reactions it was clear that no one in the village knew Threnodir or his occupation. All they knew was that they had the Heroes of Kvatch and Champions of Anvil staying in the village and that whatever threat prowled the region would soon meet its end on our blades.

 With an undue haste the crowds dispersed to the sounds of scuffing feet and the turning of locks. Homes would be barricaded well tonight, but for Viconia and I we simply returned to our room in the tavern. The mood between us had cooled once more, leaving a thin veneer of professionalism and companionship instead of the moment of pure emotion that had passed earlier. With the hour growing late Viconia made the decision to curl into bed, stripping out of everything but her pants and tunic and disappearing under the thin, motheaten bedcovers with barely a glance or word. I instead leaned up against the wall under the slightly swinging lantern, thumbing my way through the book I had taken from Threnodir’s body.

 It was a struggle at first to find passages weren’t ruined by his blood. Almost entirely ruined, there was little ink in the book that hadn’t smeared and smudged with his death. Thankfully the last handful of pages were still legible and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the charismatic vampire hunter meeting his fate in such a way. In the flickering light I read softly to myself, peeling the sticky pages apart and reading the last words of a dead man.

_It has been my personal quest to find this blade, and restore it to its previous glory. I am afraid that I have failed in this endeavour. I managed to track Lord Volmyr to his lair here in Nornalhorst. It is likely that I will die here, but I write this in the hopes that someone, some bold adventurer will find his way here, and fulfil the task that I have not – to remove the stain Volmyr has put upon this glorious sword._

_He has somehow managed, through foul necromantic rites and the assistance of his vampiric sorcerers, to quench its light. I do not know why he has not yet slain me, but I can feel my limbs cooling as the loss of blood takes its toll, and my heart quails to think that my end will come here, at the hands of a vampire lord, with a blade that once was a shining symbol against these loathsome creatures._

_I have seen enough to know that they have tied themselves to the Light of Dawn, Volmyr has been sacrificing wave after wave of his minions. And with each death, the blade's light grows weaker. I fear that soon it will fail entirely._

_I can hear them chanting now, the sound chills my soul._

 With Viconia’s soft breathing as she slept in my ears I flicked my way through the rest of the journal, seeing little more details of any real use except for a crudely drawn map of the region that appeared recently added. Stuck between illegible journal entries roughly after our first meeting at Skingrad, it outlined not only the path his journey took but also his goal. Marked simply with a tiny ink stain in the shape of a cross, notated as _Nornalhorst_ , there was enough detail for me to not only get a general idea of where it was but how far away. Using little more than my own mental map of the area I guessed that whatever Nornalhorst was, it was less than a few hours march near the western tributary of the White River. It was a short journey of less than a day in total and with this in mind I snuggled down into my rough bedroll on the tavern floor, closed my eyes and fought against my wandering mind for sleep.

 When morning came and I woke from my tangle of limbs on the floor I found myself alone in the room. Viconia had risen well before I had and was nowhere to be seen. Her clothes, armour, weapons and equipment had all disappeared with her and other than the crumpled bedcovers and her lingering perfume there was no sign of her. It wasn’t unusual for either of us to wake before the other when staying indoors but this was the first time that she had taken all her possessions with her.

 Quickly rising and with sleep removing its barbed talons from my mind I shrugged on my clothing and equipment, strapping all the various pieces of armour to my person and feeling the comforting weight return to my limbs once more. Weighed down with my armour, bandolier, pouches and weapons, I threw my cloak over my shoulders and made my way downstairs to the main hall of the tavern.

 Ducking down below the bruising base of the hourglass I stepped out into sunlight after finding no trace of Viconia in the tavern. The hour was still early, the sun struggling to be felt through the trees and foliage of the encroaching forests and after such a night the village was still in the midst of awakening. Cooking fires were being prepared, various herbs and teas finding their way into pots and filling the air with the comforting, bitter smell that caught in the back of the throat.

 The darkened shape of my travelling companion was seated against the side of the tavern, leaning back against the rough stone walls. Judging by the way the edge gleamed she had been scraping her dagger against the whetstone for several hours now, and there was a threat inherent in the consistent motions.

 “Well, I see you are finally awake.” Her dagger had less of an edge compared to her voice as she afforded me the merest of glances. “I hope that your pathetic exertions of last night brought at least one of us some measure of pleasure.”

 I stopped as though I had been slapped, staring at her dumbfounded at the tone and the hostile glare she was giving me. The last time I had seen her look at someone else in such a way had left him vomiting profusely on the ground.

 The scowl on her face twisted her beautiful features into a mask of anger and disgust as she leant forward from the wall and continued staring. Dumbfounded I could only stand there in complete shock, my mouth open and trying desperately to understand what I had done to upset her in such a way.

 The dagger thumped into the cobblestones as she threw it at her feet. For a second it sat there, lodged into the stone and soil quivering, before my eyes were drawn from it back to her. Every motion she made was filled with vicious intent and I struggled not to quail under her gaze or drop my hand to the hilt of Sunchild from pure instinct.

 “I have watched you through the night, and every moment my stomach churned with vileness.” Her lips tightened in a contorted expression of hatred I felt as though I was being smashed in the face with a maul with every syllable.

 There was a momentary pause as she leant further forward and spat on the ground in front of me. “Your very presence makes me ill.”

 The eyes of a handful of villagers looked over to us from where they had been going about their business. The tone of voice and the non-too-subtle way she was speaking at me was drawing their attention for a few moments before they thought better of it. I barely noticed them though with how much my world was collapsing in around me until it was filled with nothing more than an angry Drow standing a few metres in front of me.

 My shock and surprise was changing now, the confusion being consumed by a burning anger that matched hers in its intensity. Torn apart with my emotions rubbed raw and fuelled by the vampiric side of my soul my choler took over.

 “What in the name of Oblivion brought this on?” I snapped, spitting my words forward like they were gleaming spearpoints. “Is this about the kiss? Just because you had a moment of honest weakness doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me!”

 The milking stool that she had been sitting on fell aside with a crash as she threw herself forward, kicking up off the ground with less her usual grace and more of the rage that was exploding out of her. “Do not attempt to look into my mind and render judgement _il'kahtical_!” she snapped, stamping over to me with a heavy tread. “You haven't the strength or knowledge!”

 Where the attentions of the handful of villagers had been waning before, the anger in her tone and the way our voices suddenly raised ensured that most of them made themselves scarce. An argument between a pair of heavily armoured individuals was not something anyone wanted to be part of.

 “Why not?”

 “ _Why. Not. What_?” There was venom in her words now as she stared me down. Despite the difference in height it felt as though she towered over me in her anger.

 “Why shouldn’t I look into your mind? Last night it seemed as though you were opening it up for viewing.”

 The crack of her hand across my face echoed through the street like the impact of a smithing hammer against an anvil and I saw stars for a second. With considerable force my whole head had been rocked back, my lip splitting and leaving the searing shape of her palm across my jaw.

 There was a crunch of bone and cartridge and she backed away momentarily as the beast rose to the surface. Her anger was contagious and my features restructured in a heartbeat, tightening the skin into a visage of evil. The flash of fear in her eyes was intoxicating and alarming and before anyone could see I quickly crushed the vampire inside once more. For that moment I was suddenly more concerned with the fear she had shown at my curse than the likelihood of being discovered.

 Rubbing at my jaw as the last of the vampire shifted into the depths of my soul I saw how the fear had not dimmed the anger she felt. She was almost at the point of seeking my blood and I no longer had the stomach for this fight.

 “Fine then. Whatever.” My words drew even more anger from her but I was no longer caring, speaking purely from to simmering depths of my rage. “Go if you wish. I couldn’t care less.”

 I began to turn and she stomped forward a single pace, glaring daggers at me. “ _Vel'klar l'vith xun_ you think you are going!”

 The journal appeared in my hand as though I was playing a winning card from a deck. Flicking it into her chest she snatched it from the air, glancing at the bloodstained leather with some measure of confusion. For a moment I glanced over her, before snarling and starting to walk down the road. “I’m going to find something to kill...”

 There was no reply from her, and no trailing footsteps and the first few dozen metres were the hardest and longest I had ever travelled. She didn’t cry out, call for me to stop or return and made no effort to follow or chase after me. Instead I felt the burning gaze of her expression on the back of my skull even as I pulled my coif and hood over my head and concealed my tightening face behind my mask.

 Marching heavy footed from the village, my lengthening stride turned from a straight legged stomp into a jog. Soon the jog turned into a run and as the trees concealed the village from view the vampire rose to the surface and I began to sprint. Armoured feet slamming into the ground with shuddering steps I hurled myself through the foliage, taking refuge from the rest of humanity including my own in the depths of the forest and vampiric darkness.

 With incredible speed I surged through the forest, ignoring the way branches plucked at my cloak and the few centimetres of bare flesh free from armour and leather. Her raw anger had cut into me deep and I felt twisted and used somewhat. The tiny whisper of reason in my mind attempted to sooth my emotional hurt but the anger and the hold of the vampire would not hear of it. More than one tree was shattered as I hacked them down with Sunchild, or in one case grabbing a sapling with both hands and tearing it out of the ground by the roots. Before I had travelled more than a dozen kilometres from the village through the forests my knuckles were raw and weeping blood from punching them into tree trunks and my anger had finally begun to wither.

 The world was a collection of faded greys and throbbing sources of life to my changed eyes. The vampiric sight working even as the sun continued to rise over the horizon and spear through the canopy. Rising out of the foliage like a grey skinned boulder, the hulking form of an ogre had appeared as shimmering lines of blood and lifeforce in a world with its vibrancy lost to vampirism. In seconds of both of us realising the others presence, the cannibalistic creature was left strewn across half an acre in a collection of shredded flesh, shattered bones and splattered blood.

 It was only the creature’s death that finally seemed to satiate the vampire and it slunk back into my mind while still providing my limbs and body with unnatural power. By now I was in the depths of the forest, the castle and the tiny village nestled at its base long since lost to the greenery. Even with such a minuscule distance between me and what passed as civilisation in the region it was truly wilderness. Only the rare few individuals would travel this way; either in search of game as a hunter or poacher, or in the attempt to flee from persecution by the authorities. In the broken hilled region of County Glenvar there was little wealth to be had and the effort of clearing the forests and taming the region for farming or logging was far too difficult to be profitable.

 As such, regions such as this were home to the forgotten, the lost and the misplaced. With little more than the memory of a hand drawn map in my mind I travelled through the forest, relying on my vampiric speed and stamina to travel a distance that would’ve taken hours in a tenth of the time. While densely forested the area was still rife with landmarks that made it easy to negotiate. Hills were cut through by streams that varied from muddy cracks being consumed by moss to roaring currents that never ceased in spite of the season. Threnodir’s map had placed the location of the Sword he sought and the site of his imprisonment at one of the larger tributaries flowing north to lake Rumare, and with this in mind I managed to cover an area far greater than what should have been possible.

 It was closer to noon by the time I came across anything more than a cleft in the hills, and if it wasn’t for the unnatural angles of the stones poking through the ferns and moss of the forest I would’ve have missed it entirely. Built around and over one of the streams leading from an artesian spring in the foothills to Lake Rumare, the Ayleids had carved their mark into the West Weald. What appeared to be a town or minor city from what little I could discern by the size and configuration of the ruins was losing the fight against the forests. Most of the bricks and stonework had long since been consumed, broken apart and returned to the earth by the entangling and constricting roots of enormous trees. Many of the buildings were ruins, some still stubbornly supporting their roofs and other than the mostly flat regions between them there was nothing to show where the proud streets were once filled with life.

 My own sense of direction and Threnodir’s map had led me to the Ancient township, while merely a shadow of the ruins of Nonungalo it was by far greater than the village of Glenvar a few hours travel to the East. Like Nonungalo and most Ayleid ruins, it had been built in the shape of an enormous wheel, the streets creating the spokes and each district converging into the central hub and tower in the direct centre.

 Smaller, but still towering into the overgrown canopy of branches and leaves, and central tower was mostly intact. Ancient stones worn down from centuries of wind and rain had been overgrown and left cracked and broken. The stone working expertise of the ancient elves ensured that their legacy would continue on for centuries to come and had left the labyrinthian undercity intact and accessible.

 Standing before the yawning portal into the depths I couldn’t help by feel trepidation at what horrors awaited me inside. I felt the tiniest twinges of fear and uncertainty that were only matched by the yearning desire for Viconia’s presence. It was like twisting a dagger in my guts thinking about her and how I felt about her. there was no longer any doubt in my mind that I was falling for her just that bit more every day. After the kiss the night before I knew that the one battle I was not going to ever win was the one against my own heart.

 Making my way carefully through the gloom I tried my best to put aside my swirling thoughts to focus on the task at hand. Not matter how much I struggled, the sensation of her lips against mine, the memories of how she tasted and smelled and the feeling of her hand caressing my face was ever present. Even when the vampire rose to the surface and the mask covering my face pressed forward with my lengthening jaws I could still feel the ghost of her touch.

 The depths of Nornalhorst were alien and unfamiliar despite the standard style of their construction. The smell may have seemed all too familiar but I quickly found myself wishing for the stench of minotaur spoor instead of the horror that I found myself in.

 There was no doubt that these ruins were home to others who shared my curse. The stench of blood and barrows dirt was gagging in its intensity and death was a cloying fragrance that seemed to bypass the mask and nose to worm into the guts. Nausea struggled to gain control even as I was left salivating at the stench of blood permeating through the depths. The ancient welkynd stones were scattered and rare; their light no longer shining for some, others left little more than broken shards where something had systematically shattered them one by one.

 Corpses were found everywhere. Some, ancient and rotting were no more than shrivelled, blackened husks of leathery flesh pulled taut over fossilised bones. Others were fresh, bloodless and gnawed upon, throats torn open and long, deep cuts into arteries up the arms and legs to allow dozens to feed at the same time. There were animals, vermin and the corpses of several dozen people scattered about, all in various states of decay and intactness. This was a lair of creatures more debased and animalistic than any minotaur herd or goblin clan.

 Within the halls where ancient Ayleids once prepared and held great feasts were now nothing more than rotting slaughterhouses. Decaying meat of dozens of unidentifiable kinds hung from great hooks suspending in the ceilings where they had been rammed into the stonework with bone shattering force. There were signs of dozens of the creatures making this their lair but with every step that I took I couldn’t find any of the creatures responsible for so much death and pain. Empty tombs and worm-eaten wooden coffins were placed haphazardly throughout the undercity, providing nothing more than empty shells for long corrupted beings.

 In one hall, two dozen caskets and coffins rested where it they had appeared to have been thrown. Some were shattered and ruined, breaking the legs of carved marble tables and chairs with the impacts and leaving the floors strewn with more than just the detritus of their feedings. The vampire within me was growling now, its warning of danger building with every step even as I folded the darkness around me with its unnatural abilities. With the stealth born of the darkness there was little fear of being found by regular mortals but in such a lair I wasn’t taking any chances.

 It was just before I left the ruined feasting hall that I encountered the first of the parasites. Completely invisible to my ability to detect life, it was instead the beating of its cancerous heart that drew my attention. To my eyes it was as grey and lifeless as the stone coffin that it resided in, curled up like a sleeping child and nuzzling a thighbone that had been yet picked clean of flesh.

 My guts roiled with the proximity as I slid up alongside the coffin where it lay, the darkness coiling and swirling around me like smoke as I gazed down upon the creature. There was a similarity in our appearances, and so too with the creature that had inadvertently sired me in faraway Vvardenfell. Mine however was infinitely worse a visage, showing the vampiric curse and the daedric corruption that pumped its way through my veins. Like me, its skin was pulled taut over a frame that throbbed with unnatural power and ability, but where I was swollen with strength and vitality, it was wasted and emasculated as though it hadn’t eaten properly in weeks. Each bone pressed out of its taut skin, strips of clothing maintaining what little modesty it had left and overall showing an outward appearance of fragility and weakness.

 As the very first of my kind that I had seen in the flesh that wasn’t latched onto my throat I studied the creature, looking over it and burning the sight of such a monster into my mind. It was terrible to behold, but strangely enough I knew that I was by far the stronger. Three centimetre long fangs jutted from between its lips in a grimace of savagery, the bones of its face pushing forward and revealing a high boned facial structure like the twisted union of a Khajiit, Altmer and mummified corpse. Whatever race it had once belonged to there was little left remaining to identify as its cheeks and brow jutted forward, the jaw clenched with unnatural strength and muscles like iron twisting and pulling under its leathery hide as it dreamed of further bloodletting.

 My skinning dagger crunched into its temple, the impact jarring down the length of my arm as I twisted the six centimetres of steel in the depths of its depraved mind. There was the sudden look of shock and release in its suddenly opened eyes as the pointed tip of the dagger scraped bone, before light began streaming from deep within its body and the flesh began to combust.

 The unnatural flames took me back to the moments in that cave in western Vvardenfell, how the creatures foul blood had splattered over my chest and coated my arm to the elbow as I sawed and ripped the dagger in its torso. Sizzling like fat on the fire the creature burned form the inside-out, the ethereal flames chewing through muscle, fat, organs and skin. From the jagged wound in the side of its skull to its feet it burned, spreading quickly and leaving nothing more than ruined clothing, ash and bones to tumble into a pile in the bottom of the coffin.

 I wiped the ash from the blade with the hem of my cloak, shifting through the remains with my gloved fingers and feeling the fine powder swirling as I did so. It was so fine that I had never felt anything of the like but it did remind me of the grey-black slurry that had flowed through some of the rivers one year that Red Mountain had erupted.

 Leaving the burnt remains of my first kill I ghosted from the room, sliding through the darkness with a liquid grace and now relying on my hearing over my sight. Confidence was building in me with the way the creature had failed to detect my presence with skills assumedly similar to its own, and the further I made my way through the depths the more of the coffin worms I began discovering.

 For every coffin and stone casket that contained a sleeping occupant there were a dozen or more than were empty. It was my hope at least that the words in Threnodir’s journal were true and that most had found their ends in foul necromantic rites. Such a thought was far better than the potential of dozens of the creatures lurking in the shadows, awake and waiting.

 From coffin to tomb to casket I floated, like a deadly avatar of death and one by one I sent the souls of the vampires screaming into Oblivion. The smell of burning flesh and ash filled my sinuses, replacing the foul stink of the long dead with its choking embrace. One by one I slaughtered then, pushing my blade into eye sockets and into skulls rather than trusting their destruction to a cut jugular and brushing their remains from my gloves and demi-gauntlets as I went. By the time I had managed to make my way through most of the undercity I had turned the ruins into a crematorium.

 With each metre into the darkness, the level of horrors I experienced and witnessed from the undead parasites tore my guts apart. All thoughts of Viconia and my previous anger was washed away in unceasing horrors; instead filling me with a burning flame of vengeance against the monsters. For the most part the vampires that I encountered within the ruin were weak and seemed little more than rabid animals. Wallowing in their own filth, smeared with blood and gore and laying in their individual coffins and tombs, most seemed to choose to live in amidst the death and pain. Some, to my disgust seemed to have fallen asleep where they had been rutting like animals, covering themselves with the limbs and rot of their meals in blankets of misery and torture. Others rested like the dead that surrounded them, filling their coffins with half eaten meals where they had not been content with the liquid pumping through veins. The level of raw cannibalism left me throwing up on more than one occasion, not only from the evidence of such despicable acts but the memories that I too had partaken in similar acts within the shrine of the Mythic Dawn.

 Bloodstained altars still stained with drying blood and severed limbs could be found scattered at random through the ruins. Congealing pools of blackish ichor clung to the low laying areas where the streams of gore had flowed, intermingling with other effluents where the creatures had used the channels and cracked pools as latrines. Entire rooms were little more than wall to wall stacks of corpses of men, mer, beastfolk and creatures of the wild that had been drained, gnawed upon and discarded. Many of the corpse piles were wriggling with an unnatural life as fire-eyed rodents chewed their way through decomposing bodies and burrowed their way to make nests in the guts of the dead. I struggled against my continuously rising gorge, using nothing more than sheer willpower to stop myself from continuously wiping at the greasy sensation that clung to my skin and armour.

 I misted my way through ancient portals where their doors had long ceased remaining upright, stepping through somewhat familiar corridors that were so similar to Nonungalo that the undercities could have come from the same mould. In the massive expanse of the room before the throne room doors I had been sensing movement and hearing the muffled sound of _something_ feeding.

 Enormous and priceless engravings and statues looked down with marble visages onto the creatures defiling their once proud city. Each of them were covered with blood splatters, some long since dried within red-black flakes and others fresh and almost dripping with moisture. In the shadow of the enormous gates the collection of vampires were busily feeding; the first that I had come across in my search who were awake.

 Salivating behind the leather mask at the coppery tang of blood I slid through the darkness, feeling the leather sticking to my lips and nose but proving to be little of a distraction. The smell was overpowering but with every step I made deeper into the room it was becoming more sickly and potent, no longer just of blood; but of flesh and other bodily fluids. Where disgust clung to my heart and stomach I suddenly found myself stopping in my tracks, looking over at the inconceivable sight before me at the group of creatures hunched over on the ground in the middle of the entry hall.

 The four of them scampered and bickered amongst themselves, pushing and shoving and swiping at each other with lengthened fingernails. They were lost to the thirst, covering their faces with the stuff as they struggled to force more of the ruby liquid and flesh into their maws. Incisors and eyes shining with madness glinted in the darkness where a single varla stone throbbed with lost potency in the high ceiling, but with my vampiric sight I could unfortunately see all too much detail of the scene in front of me.

 The four vampires like their recently slain kin appeared immeasurably ancient, but unlike the others these still wore the accruements of their long lost humanity. Their gnarled leathery hides pulled taught over bones that had wrenched their features apart but pieces of blood stained clothes and rusted pieces of armour still clung tenaciously to their torsos and limbs. One still wore a heavily battered kettle helm, pushed back over its forehead to allow it to more easily feed. Their eyes were little more than pools of black fire within sunken sockets with razored fangs permanently splitting their gash-like lips in sickening parodies of smiles.

 The true nightmare was in their feeding. Everything that I had learned of my kind, my brief discussions with Threnodir and my own intimate knowledge of the curse never led me to believe that vampires were like this. Even the cannibalistic ogre tribes or troll packs who were renowned for their feeding frenzies of wayward travellers paled in comparison to what I witnessed in those tainted depths.

 Their meal was nothing more than the torn apart remains of a young child who was yet to see their tenth winter. Little more than bloodstained remnants of clothing, a mess of bloody muscle and protruding bones remained of her after what could have only been several hours of feeding from the four creatures. Tearing and gnawing on stringy bands of sinew, snapping and suckling on shattered bones for the marrow and snorting through overstuffed, dribbling mouths they consumed her flesh with abandon.

 I felt the acidic taste of bile in my mouth at the sight, feeling suddenly faint as I saw one rip out a hunk of flesh and organs from within her peeled-open ribcage. Stuffing its meal into its mouth with scoffing and bared fangs it added a fresh layer of gore that ran down its face and chest in spurts. It was only made worse by the fact that the only part of the young girl that remained untouched was her face with the tiny curls of golden hair and pale skin splattered with flecks of blood. Her face was twisted into an expression of life ending horror and undefinable pain that showed me that she was far from dead when they had begun eating her.

 The disgust vanished, the taste of vomit in my mouth fading into nothingness and I lost all control on my bubbling emotions. Rising with the waves of hatred the vampire split the bones of my face, tapering my incisors to vicious points as they slid out of my gums. Sunchild was gripped tight in my fist as I strode forward, the darkness falling away from me with the merest flicker of will and leaving me visible for all to see.

 They initially remained unaware of my presence, so intent on their consumption of their corpse that it took more than me becoming visible for them to realise the threat. Only when I hissed with white hot rage did their heads snap around with the speed of a releasing bowstring, stopping them in mid meal as their black, soulless eyes appearing as though they were startled deer. The lack of comprehension was their undoing as I strode across the gore flecked marble, growling with vampiric hatred as I beheld the way the shredded remains of their meals clung to their faces and chins.

 Almost as a single entity they realised that although I was one of their kind, I was not one of them. Some form of instinct, or unnatural awareness either by my scent or vampiric nature alerted them to the danger. Hissing and growling incoherently at my breach of their territory they initially acted as though I was an animal from a different pack, acting more concerned with the fact that I threatened their meal more than my intent as I redrew my dagger in my spare hand.

 A flash of silver rippled through the darkness and the skinning dagger _thockked_ to the hilt in an eye socket. There was a moment of silence as they watched one of their number suddenly slump forward hard onto its face, flesh burning from within even before it came fully to rest.

 Bursting into forms of pure animalistic fury the remaining three vampire ancients rushed me, dropping the last vestiges of their meals to the blood-soaked floor. They moved as shadows, exploding with powerful strength and energies as they charged. I met their hatred with my own, but I still had enough sanity in my mind to see how that two of them drew weapons of their own despite the darkness of their souls.

 Unlike the others I had killed in their crypts, these three were not decrepit or frail creatures to be cut down while they slumbered. They were unfathomably old, powerful from their natures and the time that they had existed and between the three of them they would have been more of a match for me if not for my daedric fuelled corruption.

 The first exploded into ash and bones as it ran shrieking onto Sunchild. For a second I had to wrench the suddenly heated blade from where it had been trapped in a smouldering spine, kicking the burning remains away to meet the pair of weapon wielding fiends head on.

 All forms of finesse may have been lost from whatever portions of their minds remained intact in the depths of bloodlust, but their very natures ensured they were capable adversaries. Even before Sunchild was freed from the burning remains I had to twist aside from a downwards swing of a crudely forged mace. The wind coming off the heavy lead and iron lump of metal fluttered my cloak and mask with its passage, giving a fraction of a second for the other vampire to attack me from the other side.

 Dancing my way between the two of them I dodged and weaved through their blows, shrugging off hits and grasping hands and parrying what strikes I could with Sunchild. They were hissing with rage and frustration while I merely used my anger and disgust to fuel me on, busting my knuckles in the throat and mouth of one of the Vampires with a pair of bone crunching blows that sent it reeling.

 Spitting fangs and choking horribly on its ruined teeth, it rushed back into the fray. Both were suffering wounds while I had remained untouched, the corroded shortsword that one of them wielded with questionable ability failing to do anything more than bounce off the protection of my incredible armour. One lost a hand to a deadly backswing of my sword, squealing like a goblin even as I rammed the full length of Sunchild into its sternum until the point erupted from between its shoulders.

 Hurling the combusting corpse into the path of the vampire spitting bone fragments, I forced it to back away for just long enough to retrieve my Ayleid blade. The creature had to twist away to stop from being tangled in the tumbling ruin of its kin, suddenly finding itself facing me with in the ash strewn hall surrounded by its fellows that I had slew with an almost casual ease.

 The moment of hesitation seemed to last for an hour as the creature paused in mid pounce, glancing between me, my sword and the remains of its kin with a growing need to survive. What I had never expected from a vampire was fear, and it did little but galvanise my will to slay every and all of the creatures responsible for such death and pain. It quivered for a moment, hissing in distress as it turned to flee further into the ruins.

 It managed to get half a dozen metres from the shredded remains of the child it had been consuming before I caught it. Roaring with anger I hurled myself forward with incredible speed, I took it in the lower spine with Sunchild and left it mewling and grasping at its suddenly nerveless legs. With its spine severed, and feeling every centimetre of cold metal twisting in its lower back it struggled to crawl away from me, even as I strode closer to it and pushed it into the gore streaked floor with a plated boot.

 Whatever pleas or curses it may have had for me were cut off as I pulled Sunchild out of its flesh, kicking it over so it could look up at my darkened form. It knew that I shared its taint as we mutually stared into the pits of corruption that we had for eyes, but the knowledge brought no benefit as I pushed the toe of my boot into its throat. The crackle of its trachea shivered up my leg as I pressed down hard, ignoring the way that it began scrabbling on my armoured calves before beginning the drawn out and painful process of suffocating to death.

 While the creature gargled and choked on the floor, grasping at its throat with razored fingernails I walked over to one of its dead fellows, stomping on an ash coated skull before pulling my singed dagger from where it had been trapped. The creature behind me began burning in places as it clawed at its throat, shredding away strips of flesh in its attempts to clear its crushed airways. Every chunk of skin and sinew that splattered to the floor sparked and flamed in the darkness like cooling embers lifted up from a campfire. Ignoring its desperate plight I simply turned and walked through the towering portal and into the throne room.

 Built in a facsimile of Nonungalo; the throne room of Nornalhorst was smaller in scale but would have been no less grand during the height of the Ayleid Empire. Similar statues of long dead elves lined the walls, engravings proclaiming their deeds and triumphs carved into every available centimetre of stone and metres above my head a flowing mosaic depicting gods and long dead kings had been painstakingly made with pieces of stone smaller than a fingernail. It would have been a glorious sight before falling into decay, but the darkness infusing the ruins had changed it into something far darker.

 Where Nonungalo had been mostly clean and abandoned despite the minotaurs living within its depths, the throne room of Nornalhorst was a vision of the worst depths of Oblivion. Created in the horrific honour of the Daedric Prince responsible for siring the first vampires, the Throne Room had been transformed. Forty metres long, nearly thirty wide and home to two dozen statues it no longer resembled a hall where the powerful and influential of the Ayleids had gathered before their kings. Instead it appeared as a combination of a sacrificial chamber, crypt and slaughterhouse with various implements of torture and pain scattered about at random. The far wall behind the granite throne had been covered in banners of tanned skin, spliced together with bone needles that linking the leathery curtains with white spears of human remains. The statues themselves had been similarly draped in skin in insane mockeries of noblemen and warriors clad in furs.

 The alcoves along the walls had long since been ransacked for their treasures and like many of the rooms within the undercity had been filled with the decaying corpses of dozens of beasts and creatures. Men and Mer were mixed with goblins and every beast imaginable, and within the stacks I even saw a maggot-writing corpse of a land dreugh.

 Every step suctioned to the floor momentarily as the layers of blood congealed and puckered under the soles of my boots. Blackened crests of gore were frozen in time where they had solidified, the never-ending lake of blood and viscera covering every centimetre of the floor in a horrid carpet of faded lifeforce. Every step I took threatened to trip or slide my boots in a thickened puddle, leaving feet covered to the ankles in dried flakes and horrid spurts when I broke through the dried crust into the paste underneath.

 I made my way through the rows of tortured statues, their eyes seemingly weeping blood from the skinned remnants of pain and torture that clad them in their foul coverings. Blood daubed runes covered the surfaces of the skin-cloaks, hurting my eyes while somehow feeling alluring to the darkness dwelling in my soul and corrupting my flesh. The further I stepped forward the more I could see that deeper into the room the bodies became less fresh and decaying and more ragged collections of bones. The raised platform that the ancient throne had been built upon had been lifted even higher as the vampiric coven had spent untold years and undertaken countless murders to construct a new platform made entirely out of humanoid skulls. In a square five metres wide and the throne in the centre, it spoke of horrific power and will, drawing my eyes to the desiccated body lounging on the throne that appeared to not have moved in decades, if not centuries.

 “You have the stink of daedra about you.”

 A few short paces before the skulled platform and throne I stopped cold, feeling my guts cramp at the echoing hiss as it resounded throughout the room. For a moment I could feel the ages pressing down on the voice's owner, the decades of experience and the sheer level of power at his command.

 Sunchild returned to my hand unconsciously as my eyes narrowed and peered closer at the figure on the throne. Resting with a single leg dangling over the armrest and a lengthy sword of incredible make clasped firmly in a mailed fist, it appeared little more than a corpse placed into the throne in a relaxed position of power and arrogance. When the head lifted slightly, and the reddened cores of its eyes glared at me through the darkness I couldn’t help but stagger backwards with an oath of revulsion on my lips.

 The vampire seated on the throne had been sitting there, watching my entrance to his hall with supreme confidence and an arrogance born of the immeasurable years he had strode Tamriel. The sheer vampiric power that throbbed through his veins thudded against my skull, and each of his limbs hummed with tension like a strung two-hundred-pound bow. This was no animalistic creature lost to the depths of its own depravity, but a monster from the worst of nightmares with the experience and will to match.

 Skin stretched taut over quivering muscles and bones, paled from centuries since experiencing its last caress of light, there was little to show of the being that he once was. With a jolt of horror, I realised that this pale skinned being had once been a dunmer, long since stripped of the ebony coloured hue and its humanity from the curse.

 Eyes hidden in the sunken depths of their sockets gazed over me as the ancient vampire carefully sat up, staring down on me from its skulled platformed throne with something approaching amusement. Unlike me there was no sign that the beast within its soul had ever been restrained, instead every bone was tight under the skin, jaws pressing slightly forward to allow for the throat rending bite.

 “Volmyr.” I stated simply, making an educated guess to the creatures identity.

 Like dying lanterns trapped in the depths of a well, the eyes burned into mine and the slight grimace of annoyance was not lost on me. “That’s Lord Volmyr to you, youngblood.”

 Scraping of metal echoed through the room as he drew himself to his full height, rising from the chair with flakes of dried blood floating through the air from his armour. It was a terrible, fluted steel plate of an archaic design long since fallen out of fashion in the empire. Rust may have been enacting the long campaign to reduce its effectiveness but the day where it crumbled into ruin was still far in the future. Blood had been rubbed onto every plate and crease, smearing deep into the burnished metal and into his desiccated features. His eyes had been turned into dark pools with layers of blood surrounding them, only seemed to make the gaze even deeper in his skull.

 “Who sent you whelp?” he murmured, sniffing the air like a bloodhound as he took a couple of steps towards me. “The daedra stink of your flesh is hiding your sire.”

 “No one sent me.” I replied after a moment of hesitation, causing Volmyr to tilt his head inquisitively and sniffing the air once more.

 “Oh?” there was a series of crackles and pops of breaking skulls as he took further steps forward until less than a dozen metres separated us. His armour had once been a work of art, but age and blood had corrupted its elven elegance. Some of the blood were little more than discoloured patches of rust, while others appeared livid and red as if only freshly spewed from gushing arteries.

 “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Alarissa isn’t one for sending an assassin, and that Skingradian bastard doesn’t have the balls for it. In that case, who are you to come into my home with such suicidal stupidity?”

 “I’m Kaius.”

 There was a flicker of amusement. “Just Kaius?” the baritone cackle sent chills up my spine and I found myself struggling against the growing fear of the creature’s power. “Who is your sire? He must be an interesting member of our kind to have fathered such a creature.”

 “I wouldn’t know. I stabbed him to death long before I fully turned.”

 The crestfallen expression darkened the pits of shadow of the vampire’s eyes and I found myself gripping Sunchild ever tighter. “Ah. Of course. You’re nothing more than a mistaken abortion instead of a gifted creature of the night. That explains how one such as you ended up reeking of the creatures of Oblivion.”

 Squelching into the morass of gore and rot he walked around me, holding an enormous scabbard and curved sword by the centre like a sceptre or Legion drill cane. For several moments he was silent, intent on merely studying me as sweat began sticking my hood, mask and coif to my skin.

 “You are every inch of a champion like all those others who have proceeded you, but being one of my kin isn’t something I’ve come to expect.”

 “I might be a vampire.” I hissed, turning slowly and keeping him in front of me. “But I am not one of your kin.”

 My reply seemed to amuse him and he stopped in place, boots sinking into the blood and grinning through a pair of fangs that were so long that they reached his chin. “Ah, but you are. Even now, especially in this place you can feel that thirst within you. Even moments after you have lifted your lips from a throat and the sweet taste permeates your mouth you crave for more. You can drain the arteries of dozens in a single gluttonous feasting or until your stomach bursts but you will continue yearning for more.”

 Gesturing to me with the lengthy scabbard he pointed it to my chest and cocked his head to the side. “You are nothing but the thirst. You are not a vampire. The vampire is you.”

 Rising to the surface with the first echoes of the beast, my choler rose red hot at his words. “I am never going to be an animal.” I spat, staring him down. “I will not be a creature like you or any of the others I have slain in this pit. I have far greater control.”

 “Do you really believe that?”

 “Yes.”

 Once more the chilling laugh raised the hairs on body. “I have lived for centuries, travelling the bounds of Tamriel and beyond and fed on so many that even Molag Bal would struggle to guess how many lives I have consumed. But I do know this; the thirst will always win.”

 Slowly he lifted his head to the altar at my back, the hideous, tainted thing shaped in representation to the daedric prince responsible for the birth of such a curse. “Other’s mightn’t be able to tell, but I know that you have done something that none of us ever considered possible, let alone achieved. You have drunk from the fountain of immeasurable power, and in doing so you have learned something that takes others of our kind decades, if not centuries to understand.

 My mouth went as dry as the deserts of Elsweyr, and I knew exactly what he meant. “Blood. Blood is our greatest strength, but it is also our greatest weakness.”

 With solid clangs of metal that echoed like an anvil being hit with a smithing hammer, he leant the sword up against him and clapped his gauntleted hands together.

 “Exactly.” His approval was like maggots across my skin and I felt like I was going to be violently sick. “The blood is the key to our very nature. Each drop sustains and strengthens us. You know this! You know this more than the few of my pathetic followers that you have slain. In four hundred years I have drunk from every creature in the world! When we feed, we consume part of what makes our meal what they are. If you drink from a bear, you will gain a portion of its strength. Blood from a mage will increase your skill with the magical arts. A mighty warrior will infuse you with the hint of their martial prowess and the more you drink over time, the greater your powers will become!”

 “But you-” He said, jabbing his finger at me as though it was a dagger. “You have drunk from the font of oblivion. From the very veins of a creature not of this world, and have gained something greater in doing so.”

 Like an excited child waking on the day of the New Life Festival he almost appeared to jump in place with a boundless energy, staring at me unblinkingly as he did so.

 “Tell me,” his voice churned and hissed around his fangs. “How did it taste, becoming one with the daedra? Did it taste of power? Did it taste whole and filling as the blood of a unsullied virgin? Or sickly and watered down as from an old crone?”

 At his words I stepped back, feeling my stomach turn in on itself. I couldn't help but think back to when I had torn open the throat of the Dremora and felt the hot black tang of corruption spurt into my throat. If I concentrated I could still feel the power it had contained circling my body deep within my veins, forcing memories of the destruction I had wreaked after feeding and in the depths of the Mythic Dawn’s lair back into the forefront of my mind.

 “ _Yessssss..._ ” he hissed, his body twitching as he beheld my reaction. “You remember all too well. You recognise the power that it has within you. Everyone you have drank from, and anyone that you will consume will remain part of you. Their strength will be yours. Their weakness will be yours also.”

 “Enough.” Recoiling I stepped away from the twitching vampire lord, seeing the look of surprise and annoyance overwhelming the alien emotion it had been experiencing. “I did not come here to talk or listen to the words of a crypt worm. I came here to avenge the deaths and pain you monsters have inflicted and retrieve the Light of Dawn.”

 There was a chuckle once more from the creature as he hunched slightly lower, drawing the scabbarded sword from where it rested against him. “ _Monsters_? That’s rich coming from one such as yourself. And the sword you seek is no longer here.”

 Carefully. _Slowly_ , he drew the immense, curved blade from its ebony and palladium sheath, the edge of the blade humming with an unsurpassed keenness.

 With an expert’s skill he twisted his wrist until the blade was facing vertically, rising nearly a full metre above his head with its claymore like length. He stared at it, running a caressing hand up the blunt edge as though it was a lover’s thigh and seeming enraptured by the weapon.

 “It’s beautiful, is it not?”

 I stared at the weapon, seeing the forging of such a weapon in its curved length that showed it ancient birth at the hands of the Ayleids. Like the sword in my hand it was gracefully curved, a hilt seemingly fashioned from liquid emeralds and malachite but there was something foul and unnerving about the weapon. With dawning realisation, I stepped away from the grinning vampire lord, seeing how the darkness of the throne room increased even further as the void that was the metal drank from the last vestiges of light.

 “In the hands of the Maegalla, the Light of Dawn was responsible for slaying hundreds, if not thousands of our brothers and sisters. Now? Now it is a mockery of everything it once stood for!”

 Twirling the blade,almost experimentally the predatory gleam in his eyes grew even more apparent, and with it so did my foreboding.

 “Where once we strode through the light of the sun, and now are confined to darkness; so too is the bane of all vampires. The Light of Dawn is now a symbol of the very changes were all go through when gifted with our Lord’s blessings. While it cost dozens of my brood and all my pet warlocks, the _Nightkiss_ is far more than a collection of hammered metal.”

 “So… You did corrupt the sword.” My words were a simple statement, not a question. The sheer levels of revulsion and hatred at what he had done was tightening my jaws and restructuring my face under the concealing hood and mask. While sharing the same taint of the soul as the vampire lord, the beast within been seemed to share my loathing at the creature’s actions.

 Volmyr laughed, a sound that plucked at my very soul with horror. Insanity brought on by the long years of his curse flickered in the soulless pits of his eyes and I knew that he could sense my growing fear.

 “Well youngblood. I think I will eschew the part where I offer one capable of killing my minions the chance to share my blood. Anyone who has already stabbed one sire to death is certainly not to be trusted.”

 I leapt first, cutting outwards with a vicious slice that on a mortal or lesser being would’ve left them scooping up their intestines. Instead, with terrifying ease Volmyr simply leant backwards as though shying away from an unwanted kiss, not even concerned at my feeble attempt at ending the fight before it could begin.

 Ducking aside from another strike he threw the scabbard aside, the skin of his face tightening perceptibly before roaring with hatred borne of centuries of corruption. I quailed under his overwhelming rage, even as he cut downwards with a strike meant to hew me from forehead to groin.

 Without thinking I flicked Sunchild upwards, blocking the strike with a clash of metal that briefly left sparks floating in the air before the soul-consuming blackness of the blade drained them dry. The impact of the blades ran through my arm as the light consuming edge of the Nightkiss slid down the full length of Sunchild’s downward facing blade. Suddenly thrown off guard, Volmyr grunted in surprise as his sword suddenly fell away from where he had aimed it, sinking three quarters of its length into the marble floor as though the stone was made of nothing more than heat softened wax.

 For a moment we stared in shock; I at the impossible cutting power of the weapon that could cut through a metre of solid rock, and he at the sword in my hands that seemed capable of withstanding such an edge.

 “A child of the dawn?” He murmured, gripping the deadly night-black blade with both hands and heaving it out of the floor. “You are just full of surprises… Aren’t you whelp?”

 I didn’t answer, suddenly realising that this was a fight unlike anything that I had ever encountered and trying desperately to ignore the fact that my body had gone prickly with cold sweat. With a chilling roar that was almost consumed by even worse laughter he finished ripping the sword from the floor before hurling himself at me with inhuman speed.

 The Nightkiss sung as it was swiped through the air, the whip-cracks of the deadly blade feeling like hammer blows to my gut as I struggled to hold my own against the creature. Months of practicing against the incredible skill of Belisarius and Viconia’s Drowish reflexes had turned me from a middling swordsman to one capable of holding his own in nearly any tournament in the Empire, but in the nightmarish depths of the corrupted ruin I found myself little more than an insect. Volmyr had lived for so long, and had grown in power with every feeding that even men such as Belisarius would have been nothing more than a mewling babe. Only through unleashing my control on my vampiric side and receiving its enhanced reflexes and speed was I capable of keeping such a foe at bay.

 I was strong enough to wrestle a juvenile minotaur and tear off limbs, but Volmyr was stronger by a considerable margin. I was fast enough to cross a hundred meters in seconds, and yet he was able to leap behind me in the space of a blink and within a dozen blows I was convinced he was merely taunting and toying with me. I was saved by one strike by the unnatural substance of the daedroth scales that resisted the haunting edge of the Nigthkiss just long enough for me to instinctively swipe it away and deliver a riposte that hit nothing but air.

 The whole time the vampire ancient taunted me, his laugher ringing mockingly in my ears as he ducked and weaved around my strikes made pathetic by his nature.

 Roaring with the full strength of my vampiric and daedric nature my face split in a series of sickening cracks that only just registered as pain to my tortured mind. For a moment he stopped, once more surprised as my mask was pushed down by my shifting features to reveal a face of a daedra staring into his blackened soul. My following attack was even faster than before, forcing him to stagger backwards and flip backwards with an impossible swiftness unmatched by anything short than a falling star.

 “Impossible.” He grunted from his position on top of a desecrated statue, jutting forward like a hideous gargoyle of blood and depravity. By now his words were so animalistic that I could barely understand them, his speech little more than a collection of strung together hisses and snarls.

 “You wanted to know what it is like.” I snarled, every tooth in my lengthening maw sliding further out and sharpening before his eyes. “Let me show you.”

 “Daedra blood or not, you are no match for me!”

 We hurled ourselves at each other once more, our forms becoming little more than blurs as we slammed together and crossed blades. Leaping from the top of the statue he swung the corrupted Light of Dawn in another arc that left one of the statues to quiver as half a finger width of stone was sliced into nothingness. The blade was incredible, and had been fashioned in such a way that despite its ninety centimetre blade, it was capable of being wielded with one or both hands. Sunchild, while peerless and capable of withstanding the corrupted sword was significantly shorter and left me with a considerable disadvantage in reach. This was something that Volmyr used to its full potential, swinging wildly and leaving more than one statue to teeter precariously before sliding into destruction after being entirely cut through.

 As I danced and parried with Sunchild, somehow my dagger had found its way into my other hand as I relied more and more on the burgeoning strength of the daedra infused corruption of my body to keep his superior strength and blows at bay. More and more I found myself stepping closer to him to enter inside the incredible reach of his tainted blade, slowly forcing him to give ground through superior footwork from several hours of training with Viconia and the blades.

 The daedra in my vampiric soul turned my heart and mind into ice, consuming and banishing my fears until I was an empty core, void of all emotions. Volmyr however was becoming more and more bestial with every blow that I parried or that narrowly missed me; his building rage creating tiny chinks in his defences that I was slowly able to take advantage of.

 For the first time in months I was tiring, even as his attacks became more and more identifiable with his building rage. While I was finding it easier to dodge, parry and counter his every blow, the power and speed that he put into every single one was another story entirely. Soon my arms and body were burning with exertion while he seemed to be as fresh as he was when we started.

 Within minutes we had traded blows and strikes that would've taken half an hour to conduct. Every strike could and did shatter marble with their power, moved faster than the eye could see and without my enhanced reflexes I wouldn’t have had a hope against such a being. I understood how an experienced, well equipped vampire hunter like Threnodir could have been captured and killed by such a foe. He was stronger than a minotaur, faster than lightning and had the stamina of a mountain.

 Volmyr finally managed to pin me in place, forcing our swords together and pushing hard that my boots skidded through the muck and gore on the floor. Growling and forcing my weakening muscles to lock tight, our blades were crossed, snarling visages less than a hands breadth apart until he slammed my back into the wall. With nothing more than our swords between us I could feel his rank, rotten breath on my face and feel the spray of saliva as he snapped and bit at me. Splattering across my armoured breastplate, the strands of drool from his blackened jaws soaked everything above my sternum as he attempted to sink his fangs into the flesh of my skull. I tried to lever him off, pressing upwards with all my strength but it was all to no avail, it was almost like he weighed more than a minotaur titan. Grimacing with sheer effort I only just kept the light-consuming edge of his blade from the flesh of my shoulder, feeling the pressure of the blade as it came to rest against my armour.

 With the maniacal gleam in his eye, and still snapping and biting Lord Volmyr pressed down harder and I found myself crying out as I slid down the wall. My armour was creaking and groaning under the strain, the pressure of Nightkiss making itself felt as it began to slide through my steel pauldron with all the resistance of a knife through butter. There was a sensation of weight against my shoulder as it cut through the steel plate and found the unnatural protection of the daedroth scales, but there was less than a second before the light consuming blade defeated the scales protection to find the meat underneath.

 For a second I locked eyes with Volmyr, realising with a start that if I remained within this position I was dead, and realising that I still had more than one trick left up my sleeve. With a savage headbutt right into his snarling mouth, I felt his front two teeth shatter and a fang punch into the skin of my forehead. There was satisfaction from the impact, which was almost enough to drown out the flare of pain from the blow and the hint of a headache that would follow. Despite the brief, short lived respite, it gave me enough time to concentrate and shape-change my form to escape.

 Tingling with the customary wave of nausea and pins and needles I faded into mist that broke and flowed around him, the pressure of the sword at my shoulder fading into nothingness. Shrieking with rage and surprise Volmyr suddenly lurched forward, smashing face first into the wall with a sickening crack of breaking bone. I floated around him, condensing back into my human form even before he had impacted into the solid marble, cutting out with Sunchild into his now undefended back.

 Yet again I underestimated his speed and strength, my blade somehow parried millimetres from his spine even as he twisted around and roared with a face even more gruesome with his nose now smeared across his face. Nightkiss once more flickered up through the space between us, batting Sunchild away with the clash of metal and the sound of tearing silk. Short lived and momentary, the surprise at my other ability faded away as he launched himself into another blistering series of slicing and cutting blows.

 Using everything I had I twisted and turned, relying on my recent training and ability with a sword to fend him off, and becoming mist every few seconds to effortlessly bypass blows that should have bisected me where I stood. The surprise was wearing off, but the transformations allowed me to take advantage of his overreaching blows and increasing rage to come to grips with me. The infinitely sharp blade of the Nightkiss had left me bleeding from several wounds up my arms and down my legs outside of the protection of the daedroth scales but now Volmyr too was suffering. With every gash on my person I had repaid him with a worse one.

 Where a slice had been carved into the side of my jaw, barely enough to register I had managed to cleave away a great hunk of his cheek that left him bereft of an ear and revealing the darkened hole of his mouth. Where he had gashed my arm just below the elbow, I had hacked down on his own, buckling the elven armour and opening a smile in his forearm had severed some of the minor tendons. He was missing a finger from a strike that had only narrowly missed disarming him, and part of his thigh jetted corrupted ichor down his armoured leg.

 The Nightkiss was incredible, and several of the minor injuries I had sustained had remained closed for several seconds after being suffered, the keenness of the edge not making itself felt until I moved or twisted a certain way that would open the wounds in slivers of agony. Continuing to push through the pain of dozens of close calls I could feel my confidence build as I looked into his ruined face.

 Blood streamed from his mashed nose, front teeth between his incisors nothing more than broken pegs and his whole face was slowly blooming into a terrible bruise from the impact into the marble wall. At some point during the fight after I managed a lucky slash he had cast off a damaged sleeve of his armour from the bicep down, leaving his heavily muscled arm open to the air. The slash had cut deeply into his rerebrace, slicing through skin, muscle and scouring bone. Wet meat glistened in the faint light of the overhead welkynd stones stuck in the ceiling and I could see the whiteness of bone through the opened gash in his arm. Despite suffering a wound that would've debilitated a lesser being, he continued like it was nothing more than an insect bite, forcing his ruined arm to obey his commands with nothing more than ferocious will.

 My blood was pounding in my ears, my breaths ragged and short as I struggled to quell the burning in my limbs. Pain flared in almost every part of my flesh as the dozens of minor cuts and wounds mixed together until my body was screaming at me in its torment. My dagger skittered across the congealed bodily fluids, Sunchild was knocked aside with a sweeping blow as I futilely slashed at his wounded arm once more, and as time slowed down he twisted like a fencer, wielding the enormous curved blade like a rapier as he punched it through my armour, my shoulder and pinned me to the wall like a fly.

 Erupting into flames of agony, my left shoulder first burned with cold fire, before numbness flooded the limb and most of my torso. I roared with my anger, feeling the vampire lord twist the peerless blade in my arm with utter contempt before ripping it out of the wall and me and leaving me to slump to the floor utterly spent. A fresh layer of gore sprayed across the mass on the floors surface, my own lifeforce being added to the layers and the history of torture and death that had stained every surface of the hall.

 “I haven’t had a fight like that in centuries.” He gasped, standing over me and finally showing weakness as I knelt defeated before him. My shoulder throbbed with a dull agony and I swore and cursed at how he had stabbed me in the same place where the crossbow bolt had imbedded itself. The ruined mess of scar tissue hurt even more than if he had stabbed me in a healthy portion of my arm.

 Sorrow and defeat clawed at my mind and I couldn’t help but think of Viconia as the vampire lord stood gloating over me. The realisation of how I wasn’t going to be coming back to her hurt more than the fresh hole in my arm or the gashes across my body, and a mixture of anger and sadness tore my guts apart.

 “But you manage to hurt me.” The stinging blow across my face loosened teeth in my jaws and I spat blood, looking up at him through a face that was all daedra. “That was annoying.”

 I struggled to rise but he simply swapped the Nightkiss over to his bared right arm, pushing his boot into my chest and forcing me against the wall. “You ruined my armour, killed my coven and actually managed to draw my blood. For that I’m going to make this slow and painful.”

 A wad of blood struck him in the eyes and I grinned with a mouthful of fangs at his rising anger. Swiping out the Nightkiss to flick my blood clear of its blade he held it up to me, almost pressing the edge of it across my face.

 “I think you can keep your eyes. To begin with at least. Once I’m finished with the rest of you I’ll stuff them down your throat.”

 With the darkened void of the blade so close to my eyes I couldn’t help but stare at it as he moved it closer to take my nose away. There was still some blood coating the gleaming blackness, but not much of it was my own. There was corrupted gore streaking the blade from where he had flicked it to his side, the gaping wound in his bicep having covered his arm and hand with streamers of his foul blood. Where it touched the midnight coloured metal there was swirls like oil on a pond, shifting and moving in the blackness and I found myself staring as flickers of light began to dance within the corrupted metal.

 The grin that I revealed to him stopped him for a moment with puzzlement, the look of triumph glazing over into confusion as he followed my gaze to the blades edge.

 “Oh no.” he whispered, looking at the swirling lights as they spread and began eating away at the foul blackness of the sword. 

 “I’m guessing that you bound the sword with your blood.” I hissed, laughing through another welling mouthful of blood even as he stepped away from me with the look of utmost horror on his face.

 There was a glow in the blade now, like the first stars of an evening as the sun fell below the horizon, or fireflies in a predawn mist. Sparkling and dancing they crept up the blade, leaving silvery trails as they gnawed their way through the droplets of Volmyr’s blood like worms consuming a rotten tree.

 “No...” The fear coursing through him matched the glow as it continued to build and reveal his sunken, crushed and gashed features. “No. No. No! No! NO!”

 He began shrieking with pure terror, and I watched as he began to panickily attempt to wipe the blood off the glowing blade. Wiping such a keen edge with little more than his bare flesh didn’t succeed in doing anything more than gashing him palm open in a glistening smile and smearing even more of his tainted blood on the enchanted blade. Screaming, pleading, chanting foul necromantic incantations over and over the light continued to build almost in spite of his every action. The darkness of the Nightkiss drank heavily of his blood as it replaced more and more of itself with a burning, intense light. Every drop of his blood on the blade’s surface stripped away the layers of corrupting spells and enchantments that he had spent so long and so many lives in corrupting the Light of Dawn. Bound to him in blood through the foulest abilities and spells necromancy had to offer it was his blood that broke the shackles on a weapon intended to slay our kind.

 Bursting from the swords edge at random, the dazing beams of light baked the blood on the floor into dust, and wherever it touched his skin it left him screaming and horribly burned. Flesh peeling and blistered red raw he dropped the sword with a clatter before it sunk several centimetres into the marble, coming to a rest and hiding its edge from view for a second. The ancient vampire was screaming and clutching at his face, an eye had been burned from his skull and left little more than a blackened strip of skin and bone that matched the other side where I had cut half his face away. Burning fragments of his flesh trickled from between his fingers as the disconnected strips ignited, showering his hand and arm in blood and ash as he tried to cover the agonising burn.

 While powerful, the beams of light had no effect on me. Just like the sun shining outside of the desecrated ruins the light from within the corrupted blade did nothing to me except allow me to use my real eyes to see for a few moments. Distracted with the pain flooding his face and arm from the light’s sting Volmyr failed to stop me as I dived forward, grasped the exquisite hilt of the Nightkiss and jammed it deep into his body through his groin.

 Shrieking with the intrusion his hands dropped from his sliced and scalded face, grasping my hands in a crushing grip that crumpled my demi-gauntlets. Roaring, ignoring the protests of my wounded shoulder I heaved on the blade with all my strength, lifting him from the floor until the hilt was left pressing against the inside of his thighs and the tip of the blade was trapped somewhere in his chest. The ninety-centimetre blade sliced through his insides without any resistance, leaving the ancient vampire lord staring at me through his remaining eye, dribbling gore from his shattered mouth and screaming as the burning light of the sword began to flense him from the inside.

 Undone with the taste of his blood, the Nightkiss shuddered in my hands like a wounded animal as the original blade began shining through. Even as he began to combust with death the Light of Dawn sent his soul screaming into oblivion, stripping away flesh, muscle and organs and blasting his bones with waves of purity. I was forced to close my eyes as the light built to a silent crescendo, but the intensity of the light was so great that afterimages of Volmyr’s twitching skeleton through my eyelids remained long after his echoing scream faded. I was left the last survivor in the ruins, the blasted remains of my would-be-killer tumbling on me and at my feet in a jumbled pile of ruined armour, burnt clothing, fire-blackened bones and grey-black ash.

 I fell flat on my face in his remains, feeling the choking ash of his demise force its way into my lungs and sinuses with every hacking breath as I struggled to rise. The warmth of blood from my shoulder trickled its way down my chest and back, sticking the leather underlayers to my skin that somehow managed to annoy me with how uncomfortable it was. The spreading feeling of numbness and the slight chill coursing through my limbs as mild blood loss set in finally began sinking into my exhausted mind. Using nothing more than my good arm I pushed up into the kneeling position and took stock of my situation.

 Volmyr was well and truly dead, there would be no coming back for him even with some of the more outlandish stories and superstitions that surrounded our kind. The Nightkiss had died with him, being reborn from his ashes figuratively and literally once more as the gleaming _Light of Dawn_. Where the blade had once drunk from the light and consumed it within its depths it now shone with a faint intensity that only the corrupted blood of vampires could release. Swirls of faint light, like the faraway hints of stars on a cloudy night blinked within the metal of the blade, now revealed in its pure silvery-blue sheen of a metal rarely seen throughout Tamriel. There was a similarity between it and Sunchild where the two Blades were compared, but it was almost like comparing an iron training sword with an Ebony honour blade in terms of quality and craftsmanship. The only thing that hadn’t changed with the loss of its corruption was its sheer cutting edge, which if anything had somehow increased with the rejuvenation as the ultimate vampire slaying weapon.

 Groaning and jamming the hem of my blood-stained cloak between my teeth I pressed my fingers into the tiny slit in my armour. Barely three fingers wide, and slicing between two daedroth scales and separating and section of chainlink, the wound in my shoulder was right where the crossbow bolt had hit me in the Mythic Dawn’s ambush. Weeping with blood it was an unnaturally clean wound, the nature of the Light of Dawn making it hundreds of time more efficient in cutting and slicing but stabbing wounds were almost self-sealing.

 With burning heat I closed the wound with bursts of magicka, knitting the flesh and muscles together again in the depths of my shoulder to ensure I wasn’t going to finish bleeding to death. The pain was extraordinary, but it was only through the urgings and rising assistance of the beast that allowed me to lurch to my feet, retrieving Sunchild and my dagger from their places on the floor and stagger about the hall as though drunk. The priceless scabbard was pulled from the filth coating the floor, somehow being the only item other than Sunchild that the blade wasn’t able to cut through effortlessly. Blinking with the effort to stay conscious I scavenged through the room, finding yet another tiny collection of baubles and trinkets from the numerous victims of the vampires that soon found a place in my pouches. Grave robbing wasn’t something that I could bring myself to do, but in the darkness and depravity of that place leaving a small fortune in gems, coins and jewellery behind didn’t even cross my mind.

 The pain of my wounds was almost crippling and after stuffing my pouches with everything I could get my hands on I again ran my hands over everywhere I could reach, healing as much as I could with risking mutation and cancers. It would be a few days until I would be fully fit, but I knew that it was far better than being dead. Gently rummaging through my ingredients pouches I ground up a fine paste like that I had used at the base of the waterfall, smearing it into my gums and sighing as the pain slid away into waves of euphoria. The paste was stronger than what I would’ve usually utilised but with at least several hours of solid marching to return to Glenvar ahead of me I wasn’t going to cut myself short on the painkilling ointment.

 I left the bloodstained ruin of Nornalhorst behind me, walking out and into the sunlight and feeling the layers of gore strewn ash crackling in the winter sun. After the first kilometre through the forest, the blood had begun to flake and fall away in a maroon-grey dust. After the next six, the sweat cleared streams down my face and stung the eyes despite the makeshift bandanna I had wrapped around my forehead. By the time I had returned to the village in the shadow of Glenvar Castle the sun was dipping into the horizon at my back, lengthening my own shadow into a hunch backed colossus striding over the land in a determined, if somewhat inebriated gait. Dusk had set in when I felt the worn cobblestones of the village streets under the soles of my boots, and pushed open the door to the inn to the gasps and exclamations of those within.

 Clothing ripped and torn in places, a combination of my blood and that of several vampires and the dust of their fiery deaths covered almost every centimetre of my body. Upon crossing the threshold and successfully ducking the garlic and hourglass door arrangement I smiled wearily at how everyone in the room jolted from their seats. Several made various signs to the Nine Divines; the most common was the brief crossing of the chest invoking Talos’ protection and at least two of the patrons rose to their feet with hands falling to the weapons by their sides. One of them, a brutish man-at-arms from the castle in his grubby surcoat and mail grasped the military pick at his hip threateningly until he realised that challenging someone such as myself mightn’t be the smartest idea.

 Bone-wearingly exhausted from an entire day of marching, several hours of fighting and the closest call to death I had ever experienced I was ready to find the nearest open space of floor and fall unconscious. At that point however, there was only one thought churning through my mind which had forced me to step one foot in front of the other for the previous hours.

 “Is she still here?” I asked Abhuki, the Khajiit innkeeper who looked over me with suspicious eyes at my dishevelled appearance.

 “The dark skinned one is, yes.” Her ears folded tight against her skull and there was hint of a snarl in her expression. “Been scaring away this one’s customers all day. Last I saw her, she was upstairs in the room.”

 “So, you have a free room available then?”

 There was a narrowing of eyes from the Khajiit as she stared at me. Viconia’s mood had obviously not improved our relations with the village. “You have rented a room already.”

 I slid a coin from the depths of my pouches across the surface of the bar which she picked up in a clawed hand and stared at suspiciously. “I want a separate room for the night, a mug of your strongest alcohol and a bath. Not necessarily in that order either.”

 She experimentally bit into the coin and I watched as she realised that the coin was indeed gold. “That can be arranged” she murmured, and turned around to open a bottle from the others arrayed on the shelves behind her.

 “Master Desin?” there was a timid voice from behind me and I saw how a group of the locals had edged forward, afraid of the state that I was in and concerned for what it foretold for their community.

 “Glenvar is safe.” I said simply, nodding my thanks to Abhuki as she gave me a mug of spirits distilled from local potatoes. From the smell alone, it was extremely effective as cleaning wounds, and probably paint as well.

 I gulped down the fiery spirit in one go, feeling the way that it burned all the way down and washed the taste of blood and my painkilling paste from my mouth. “There was a coven of vampires nearby.”

 The ripple of fear through the group was obvious and once more they made various signs of the Nine. “Vampires?”

 “The key term here is ‘ _was_ ’. I killed all that I could find and I don’t think that I missed any.”

 There was a lot of suspicious glances between the group as they considered my words. Without solid proof of the vampires they were inclined to disbelieve my claims, but I drew out the enormous length of the Light of Dawn and placed it on the surface of the bar alongside a skull I had carried with me. Lord Volmyr’s blackened cranium regarded the room with sunken eye sockets and everyone withdrew from the sight of the four-centimetre-long incisors propping it up.

 “There’s a bag just outside filled with another dozen or so skulls just like this one.” Abhuki returned another mug of spirits as she stared disdainfully at the burned skull on her bar that had shed the tiniest amount of ash from within its cavities. The second mug emptied as quickly as the first and I felt the warmth flow through me, moving away from the bar and raising a questioning eyebrow in the innkeeper’s direction.

 “Up the stairs you must go, to the first door on the right. I’ll send someone to you once the bath is drawn.”

 I nodded my thanks, flipping a silver coin in her direction and acquiring the rest of the bottle of distilled spirits before climbing the stairs. The Light of Dawn in its priceless scabbard was dragged off the surface of the bar, leaving the haunting skull of the vampire lord to gaze accusingly at all who remained.

 In my new room I dumped my excess equipment, hauling off my travelling pouches and pack and leaving me dressed in my armour and clothing. For a moment I hesitated after leaving the room, standing before the room that Viconia and I had been sharing and feeling even more terrified than what I had when Volmyr had pinned me to the wall.

 Breathing heavily, I rapped my bloodied and bruised knuckles on the doorframe, hearing the sounds of movement within and opening the door anywhere when no response came. Viconia was alone in the room, sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, reading some mouldering book that had spent too many years within the inn.

 “You made it back I see.” She stated bluntly after several minutes of awkward silence. Annoyance flashed in her eyes for a moment as she met my expression, but it disappeared just as quickly.

 “And you stayed.” I replied, stepping inside and feeling her eyes travel up the length of my body and take in the signs of battle and death that covered every centimetre.

 There was a snort and the book clapped shut. “Like I have said several times before _wael_ , where else would I go?”

 “Anywhere you liked I should think.” The chair creaked as I sat on it, placing the Light of Dawn on the table on top of the pile of armour arrayed on it. “And the way things seem to have been going recently you’d have a higher chance of not getting injured or killed.”

 “It would help if your battle strategy didn’t rely on getting stabbed or punched all the time.”

 The corner of my mouth curled and I could see the hints of humour returning to her expression. However, it was still filled with immeasurable melancholy, and the mood that had gripped her earlier in the day had not subsided by much.

 “Were you successful?” She asked after some time, and I nodded, lifting the Light of Dawn and handing it over to her by the hilt.

 “The Vampires are dead; the skulls are downstairs as proof of the contract and this is the Blade that Threnodir was seeking.”

 I could see the way her eyes light up in amazement as she slid several centimetres of the blade from the scabbard, gazing into the gleaming metal as it swirled and flickered faintly like stars on a moonless night.

 “And judging by your appearance, I am to assume that you got yourself injured again?”

 Trying and failing to hide my sudden nervousness I could feel my heart racing faster as I remembered how close I had come to death and how it was only through luck that I had survived Volmyr. “It was a close-run thing.” My admission did little to change her expression as she stared at me and handed the blade back. “I managed to get some new scars to add to the collection.”

 Another moment of silence stretched the evening chill and the sounds of muted conversation and renewed drinking began echoing up from the ground floor. She sighed, looking elsewhere in the room, anywhere but my eyes.

 “I… I apologise, for earlier this morning.” Our eyes met each other’s for a heartbeat and I felt the familiar pangs of desire as I gazed into their yellow depths. “You must remember that I still have not been on the surface long and I'm still finding it hard to adjust to it all.”

 “I’m also sorry.” She looked at me with a strange expression at my words that left me chewing my lip nervously. “I know that my words caused offense, and I’m also sorry for my loss of control.”

 The expression that she suddenly wore was indescribable as she shifted through several emotions before looking at me with the slightest hint of confusion.

 “We’re two or three days at least from Bravil.” There was no change to her expression as I nervously attempted to change the topic, continuing to look at me with her predatory gaze. “Once morning arrives we can go and collect the contract and be on our way well before noon. That is, if we continue travelling together.”

 She thought for a moment and somehow that made me feel better than her having already come to a decision during the day. While she had obviously been doing little else but considering her options while I was killing vampires, now that I was standing there in person she was rethinking them once more.

 Finally, she looked me dead in the eyes once again “This arrangement is satisfactory.” There was a muted hiss to her words after she mulled them over in her mind before speaking.

 “For now…”


	17. The Hunter's Run

Bravil…

 Even after all my travels and experiences during my time in the legion, there were few places that the memories sat uncomfortably in my mind. Of all the slums and shanty towns I had resided in or woken up in the gutter of through the years in Vvardenfell, they had nothing on the city of Bravil. A suppurating wound in the marshes of the northern Niben, the city festered and decayed like a bloated corpse freshly pulled from the polluted waters that surrounded it. This was no Skingrad, with its perfectly designed streets crowned with gardens overflowing with life and colour, or the wide-open plazas and courtyards of Anvil filled with space and laughter. Bravil was slum on a mass scale, clinging to life like poisonous moss and yet somehow still managing to survive year after year. Despite the best attempts of the city-consuming conflagrations or district ravaging plagues there was nothing that seemed capable of reducing the stain of such a settlement.

 Bereft of strong leadership by an increasingly corrupt and indifferent linage of Counts, the city had fallen to ruin until only the callous and selfish remained. Crime was rampant, and there were only the handful of individuals who refused to fall into the deep levels of villainy that bubbled up from the underworld like the polluted waters of the Larsius River that struggled to reach the purer waters of the upper Niben. The river itself was nothing more than a muddied and polluted latrine in the shape of a city, filling the air with rot and pestilence until every centimetre of flesh crawled with the noxious sensation.

 Shacks and shanties, built in increasing numbers and cramped conditions jostled and pressed into each other. The mutual weight and poor workmanship ensured that several a month would collapse or otherwise sink into the morass that flowed beneath the duckboards and jetties. Stone was an expense that few could afford and its extra weight only seemed to hasten the inevitable slide into the depths of mud and excrement, so wood was exclusively used everywhere. With the exception for the towering walls of the castle, and the poorly maintained curtain wall long since rendered obsolete by the ever-expanding suburbs it was a city made from the corpses of trees.

 Built into the marshes, the only industries able to survive in such a place were those who used the bogs for its supply of peat, or those that used the bubbling sources of tar and pitch that stained the surface waters black and sticky. Handfuls of fishermen plied the deeper depths of the Niben, proving a supply of food to keep the thousands within the slums from starvation but with no other sources of income the inhabitants quickly took to crime to survive.

 Protection rackets, muggers, thieves, smugglers, highwaymen, moneylenders, gambling halls, skooma dens and countless other lowlifes lived, plied their trades and usually died violent deaths within the festering boardwalk suburbs and lean-tos. The guard were inefficient or corrupt or both; ignoring the plight of those who should have been able to rely on their presence and rarely leaving the more affluential districts clustered around the castle.

 Our boots shuddered the boardwalk threateningly as we made our way through one of the many districts clustered like a cancer in the heart of the City. Wet rot, mould, effluent and decay clogged our sinuses as we travelled; a horrid stink that would take days, if not weeks of bathing to completely scrub from our skin and clothing.

 “By Shar, what is that stench?” Viconia snarled as we moved through a portion of smell so powerful I resisted the urge to draw Sunchild to cut a passage. “Is that you, or something rotting?”

 Whatever she could smell, I was uncomfortably aware that my enhanced senses were not a blessing in such a place. Increased several-fold I could pick up individual scents in the plague-strewn streets not matter how hard I tried not to. The taste of a weeks-old bloated corpse surfacing in the mud and sewage below the platform made me almost wish that I was back in the horrid depths of Nornalhorst surrounded by the detritus of a vampire coven.

 “Something dead.” I replied honestly, stepping to one side as a beak-masked plague _doktor_ made his way with his bag of instruments and smouldering censer hanging from a wrist. The smell of burning rosemary and sage was a pleasant relief from the constant assault of the city on the sinuses despite what the hooded and cloaked individual represented. In the days since our arrival we had seen several of their kind wandering the streets as yet another plague continued to make itself felt.

 Viconia’s expression of interest didn’t change until the doktor in his long beaked, potpourri filled mask turned around a corner and vanished from sight. Even in a place such as this, her interest in the surface world wasn’t dimmed despite the best attempts of the city to dampen it. In the days since leaving Glenvar a dark mood had consumed her and Bravil wasn’t helping her attitude. Constantly seeking a fight or argument we had snapped at each other on occasion over the previous week, and while it hadn’t been as serious as the argument we had the morning I retrieved the Light of Dawn the threat of another remained, simmering beneath the surface like a rotten corpse.

 “This looks like the place.” She said simply, looking up to the sign that dangled from the overhanging roof by a single rusting chain. The name of the establishment was burnt into the wood with a piece of heated metal many years ago, and I paid it little heed as I pushed the door open, stepping inside the gloom and allowing my eyes to adjust to the light.

 The Lonely Suitor Lodge, while technically an Inn or boarding house was like everything else in Bravil; a poor front for other activities. As a combination of a gambling hall, skooma den and brothel; it smelt and looked as such and our appearances drew the attention of nearly everything within.

 Roughly hewn walls of various marshland and mangrove forest wood, the walls, floors, ceiling and furniture appeared little more than ruined scraps washed downstream hammered together into vague shapes of furniture and structural supports. There were dozens of tables and chairs scattered about everywhere and few placed into shadowed alcoves for those that wished a little more privacy with their activities. Despite the hour of the morning there were over two dozen individuals in the room, ranging from the brutish orc who owned the lodge and his equally enormous greenskinned bouncers to the various patrons lounging about. Members of every race were in the dank building, the air stained with soot and smoke and with the hint of burnt skooma making itself felt over the smell of unwashed bodies, stale sweat and even staler beer. A handful of women of various ages and appearances made their way in between the tables, blank expressions plastered on their faces of years of suffering and I felt my hatred for the city continue to build.

 Armoured and carrying everything of value we possessed we cut an unusual sight within the lodge and immediately upon entering two of the Orc bouncers tensed and watched our every move carefully. Gang violence was a common enough occurrence in the city, and although it was usually in the form of back alley stabbings, it was known to leave buildings as blood soaked slaughterhouses from time to time.

 Striding through the press and ignoring the way that several individuals hurried out of our path we walked over to one of the shadowed alcoves, spotting the one person who we had travelled to this den to meet.

 “Kurdan gro-Dragol?” I said simply, seeing the heavily muscled Orc lounging behind a table with his back against the wall look over Viconia and I with the faint look of annoyance.

 “Well, well.” His voice rumbled out of a barrel chest that would have put most legionaries to shame. “What brings the ‘eroes of Kvatch to these ‘umble walls?”

 “We’re looking for someone.” I said simply, seeing the way that his jaw rolled back and forth as he gnawed on a fat stick of chewing tobacco. “Word is it that you are the one who knows where he is.”

 “Oh?” Sickeningly he twisted his head and spat a dribbling stream of black juice in the vague direction of a spittoon. Most of it splattered down his chin and the front of a heavily stained tunic from a tusked mouth not made for spitting. “An’ just who might this feller be?”

 “Aleron Loche.” Viconia’s eyes were hard glints of light in the flickering twilight of the lodge and her voice was as cold as a Skyrim glacier.

 The dark expression palled the brute’s face as he glowered at the both of us. Angrily he wriggled in his chair, making some vague motion under the table before shuffling backwards.

 “Never ‘eard of ‘im.” He snarled, staring at us even as one of the women of the lodge crawled out from under the table. Jamming another chunk of stinking tobacco into his mouth before proceeding to chew loudly he tossed a copper septim to her. “Make yerself scarce darlin’.”

 “Word has it that he came to see you to discuss his debts a few days ago. Now he’s missing, and you were the last person he saw.”

 “People go missin’ in this city all the time. It’s Bravil for fuck’s sake.”

 My smile was terrible and the threat wasn’t lost on him. “But you are the local moneylender, are you not?”

 His hands slapped down on the table loud enough that eyes were drawn to us before being hastily adverted elsewhere. “That’s none of yer damn business. I’d tell yer if I liked yer… an’ I don’t.”

 A towering shadow of green muscle and leather armour appeared behind us and I glanced back at the sight of a hundred and thirty kilograms of orc bouncer. He stood taller than all three of us and I only just came up to his forehead in my minotaur leather boots.

 “I think you two need to leave.” The threat hung in every word as the orc gripped Viconia by the shoulder, the meaty green paw encompassing her entire pauldron, shoulder and collar.

 Mistakenly identifying me as the greater threat and thinking that threatening Viconia would make me more pliable, the orc and everyone else in the vicinity was utterly unprepared for Viconia’s sudden explosion of activity. She twisted in his grasp, wrenching his wrist around painfully before reaching up, gripping him by his own shoulder and using her lower centre of gravity to trip and pull the giant down. The sickening thud and crunch of gristle and teeth reverberated through the entire room as his face smashed into the side of Kurdan’s table on the journey to the floor. The table itself was only saved from destruction from its surprisingly sturdy construction and the way it had been nailed into the floor. In a split second it was over, the giant orc bouncer was unconscious on the floor, flagons, mugs and coins left chiming on the nearby tables from the impact and a shocked silence filled the lodge’s interior. Kurdan was left glancing between Viconia standing there like nothing had happened and the hunk of broken tooth left quivering in the table’s surface.

 She casually stepped to the side where the orc was left stretched out and I turned as several more shadows began moving closer as they looked to their employer. The owner, staring in amazement at how Viconia had floored one of his employees waved the others off with a curt gesture and a shake of the head, choosing to leave Kurdan to whatever he had found himself involved in.

 “Well… Fuck....” He said simply as he pushed a saliva moistened chunk of tobacco back between his lips. “Me’be I know ‘im, me’be I don’t.” Hardening perceptibly his expression changed from shocked to outwardly calculating, and wasn’t the sort of expression that I felt comfortable with. “But since yer so interested, I know somethin’ that could jar my memory.”

 “Which is?” I asked carefully, crossing my arms and ensuring that he and all the others could see the way that my armour twisted and bunched together with an archer’s strength.

 “I just learned that a family ‘eirloom; the Axe of Dragol, which one of my _stupid_ relatives lost, is located on Fort Grief Island in the Bay.”

 “And let me guess, you want us to find it for you.”

 “ _Exactly_...” Purposely drawing the word out, his grin grew even more threatening and calculating. “Yer with the Fighter’s Guild, doin’ jobs fer coin and all that aren’t yer? Yer do a job for me and yer get paid…

 I glanced at Viconia and she merely sneered, shrugging her shoulders and looking completely disgusted with remaining in such a place. Kurdan continued talking, choosing to ignore us for the moment.

 “My informant tells me it's ‘idden in the main keep at the centre. Dunno what's guardin' it, but I'm sure yer can ‘andle it. If yer go there and brin’ it back to me, I'll tell yer exactly where Aleron is.”

 Interest immediately piqued and knowing that my instincts on him were accurate I returned his grin with one of my own. “And what’s stopping me from letting my companion here have her way with you?”

 There was the tiniest hint of fear in his eyes as he glanced at the Drow by my side, but he squashed it with remarkable willpower. “Then Aleron may not be comin’ ‘ome from ‘is... ahhh… _journey_ , for a very long time. Like _permanently_.”

 “What do you think?” I asked Viconia, seeing her foul expression only deepen.

 “Razing this hovel to the ground would be pleasurable.”

 “But unfortunately, that won’t get us anywhere.” I turned back to Kurdan and nodded. “We’ll get your axe.”

 “Ha!” He rubbed his stained hands together and rose to his feet, momentarily rummaging and rearranging the front of his trousers before walking around the table. “Tat’s what I like to ‘ear. Whenever yer ready, and it better be _soon_ if yer catch my meanin’, I'll ‘ave a boat waitin' for yer to get to Fort Grief Island. I doubt that you feel like walkin’ out there in that fancy armour of yer’s and I’m guessin’ yer don’t have available transport on ‘and...”

 I shrugged, non-committedly as he briefly told us where to meet him with his boat. With nothing else keeping us in such a place we made our way back to the door, ignoring the way that all the patrons and staff gave us a wide berth.

 “How can you trust _srow_ like him _jaluk_?” Viconia hissed as the door slammed closed behind us. Ever since Glenvar she had fallen back into her old terms and insults when talking to me and for the most part I ignored it.

 “I don’t trust him as far as I could piss him.” I said simply, my hand finding its way to Sunchild as I nervously ran my fingers up the ruby red hilt.

 “Then why do this?”

 “Because this is the contract we were given, and I can’t think of any other way to find Loche.”

 The darkening scowl on her face deepened further as we made our way to what passed as the city docks. “I still think that we go back and tumble that place in around his head.”

 “If he double crosses us, then that will be _plan B_.”

 The midday sun was high above us by the time the orc moneylender made his way down the creaking jetty on the end of the city. The Niben stretched out beyond the horizon, dozens of kilometres wide and rolling with tiny waves in the breeze. Far to the north we could see the tip of White Gold Tower appearing from the haze from where City Isle lay hidden beyond the edge of the skyline. Other than the few islands scattered about the bay where Lake Rumare met the Upper Niben and the sails of enormous caravels and trading hulks there was nothing to be seen for kilometres.

 While we waited for the burly Orc, Viconia spent the time complaining bitterly, cursing the guild, our contract, the stinking latrine of a city and me in equal measure. She had not been in a pleasant mood for over a week now and it seemed to be steadily getting worse as her personality became ever more corrosive.

 Kurdan was good to his word at least, providing a small boat with a set of oars and triangular sail that he insisted on sailing himself. Not one of us trusted the other and as neither Viconia and I had no experience with boats or any idea where the fort was we had little choice but to let him take us. Several kilometres into the open water, steering around the deeper channels where the enormous cargo vessels sailed across the waves we were brought to where the broken mound of walls jutted from the wind-blasted rock. Ancient and fallen into disrepair after being abandoned sometime in the 2nd Era, Fort Grief had once been a base for the Imperial Navy but improvements in sailing and weaponry and the dwindling importance of Bravil had sealed its fate to slowly sink into the depths of the Niben. It was a sorry sight of crumbling stones and decaying walls much like its parent city, but despite the weight of the years against it was still sturdy enough that the walls couldn’t be scaled easily, and the only entrance was the yawning gatehouse.

 “What brought your cousin to this place?” I asked the grumbling Kurdan as he pulled in the sails. For the entirety of the journey I had watched him intently, watching how he steered the tiny craft.

 “Eh?” he looked up from where he had been tying the sail off onto a set of pegs on the side of the hull. “ _Oh_. He ‘eard there was old treasures ‘ere or sumtin’. Damned idiot.”

 “And were there?”

 “Not that I ‘eard.” His temper was fraying with every metre we got closer to the island and I could see him struggling to keep the smirk off his face.

 “Why haven’t you come here to reclaim the axe?” Viconia asked from her position at the bow, leaning back and feeling the water spray through her hair as it waved in the breeze.

 “I’m afraid of ghosts an’ the dark.” There was something close to honesty in his voice as he failed to meet either of our expressions and Viconia and I shared a glance and our mutual foreboding.

 Crunching in the gravel the keel pushed through the rocky beach and grounded us on one of the few places where boats could land on the island. Nearly thirty metres up the beach the towering walls of the ancient coastal fortress rose into the sky, decayed but still surprisingly strong.

 “Well, we’re ‘ere.” He muttered as he threw out the boat’s tiny anchor into the beach and pulled down the sail. “I suggest yer get to it.”

 “What does this axe of yours look like?”

 With a snarl, and brandishing an oar like a fighting quarterstaff as he planted it into the gravel he motioned vaguely towards the fort, jamming another stick of tabocco into his mouth. “It’s a battleaxe with the word ‘Dragol’ carved into the ‘aft. ‘Uge. Yer can’t miss it.” Digging behind a tusk with a grubby finger he nodded to the ruins, the triumphant grin growing on his face with every second. “I ain’t gonna draw yer a picture.”

 Turning our backs to the Orc Viconia and I made our way towards the gatehouse. For a moment I considered that his plan was to simply leave us on the island and call it a day, but there were a number of fisherman’s boats scattered about the bay, and the deeper water of the upper Niben was the primary route for the trade vessels heading from Leyawiin to the Imperial City. A significant number of them were close enough to hail if a rescue was required which only seemed to increase my growing unease.

 “You know that this is a trap.” Viconia muttered as we crept through the open gatehouse, looking up at the ancient murder holes and studying the half-closed portcullis.

 “Yep.” I replied, looking about for signs of anyone before pulling my bow from its leather case that had kept it and its string dry in the trip over. Carefully I strung its impressive weight and nocked a silver tipped arrow with practiced ease. “But an identified trap is one that is already defeated.”

 “And sticking your head into an illithid’s tentacles gets your brain eaten.” She replied bitterly and drew Dragonbane. There was no sign of any danger in the ruins, but there was also no sign of _anything_ in the ruins except the dust of the ages and the occasional crab that called it home.

 Entering the courtyard of the fort I immediately started checking all directions and making a mental map of the area. Built in the similar design as hundreds of others throughout the Empire it was a giant rectangle of stone and masonry, one short edge containing the primary gatehouse, and the other containing the inner keep. Five stories tall, fifty metres wide and just as long; the stronghold in the Fort’s interior towered above the surface and sunk at least a single story under the ground. It was built to house a Casta and all the supporting staff and was a separate fort within a fort. Normally unassailable without significant numbers of attackers, the doors had long since fallen into decay and left it permanently opened. The constant moisture had softened the wood and rusted the hinges of the main doors until they lay on the ground like wounded soldiers waiting for the end to come.

 Overall the fort itself was impressive, the courtyard mostly cleared of debris and containing a surface area as large as the interior stronghold itself. Age and neglect had ruined it but it was not quite useless; the walls were thick and most of the fort still stood resolute. What concerned me though was that there were signs all over that the fort was not entirely abandoned. Freshly kicked over piles of rubble, mostly fresh bloodstains and the detritus of several individuals such as scraps of clothing were scattered about at random.

 Some rubble shifted as we moved closer to the interior fort’s doors, and within a heartbeat both Viconia and I had twisted at the sound. My bow was suddenly raised, the arrow’s fletching tickling my jaw and ear and Viconia’s hand was wreathed in crackling energies even before we identified the source of the noise.

 Clothed in a dusty doublet and linen pants, an elderly Breton slid from where he had been crouching and shrieked in terror at the weapons suddenly pointing in his direction.

 “Oh gods!” he wailed, curling up as best he could to present a smaller target. “Please! Please don’t kill me! I… I’ll get Kurdan his money I swear!”

 “Who in Shar’s name are you meant to be?” Viconia hissed threateningly as neither of us lowered our weapons in the slightest.

 “Aleron. Aleron Loche…” He whimpered, and my unease increased dramatically. “Who…. Who are you?”

 “I’m Kaius.” My bow lowered to the ground and the tension was carefully released from the string as I gestured between Viconia and myself. “My eloquent companion there is Viconia.”

 The flash of white hot anger twisted Viconia’s expression into one of hate as she swore consistently in Drow and kicked a rock across the surface of the courtyard. Aleron’s look of terror didn’t subside at her anger or at our heavily armoured appearances.

 “Kurdan… H-he didn’t send you?”

 I shook my head as Viconia stormed off a few metres away. “No. We’re with the Fighter’s Guild. Your wife contracted us to find you.”

 The expression of terror only increased at my words and sweat stained his tunic. “That means… Oh no…”

 Eyes widening in fear he suddenly grinned a smile of one who had come to accept his fate. “It appears as though Kurdan has tricked another poor soul with his 'axe' story.”

 “Yeah, we guessed that it was a trap of some kind.”

 My response did little to allay his fears, if anything he appeared even more morose than before. “And yet you still came. You haven't guessed it yet? There never was any Axe of Dragol, it was just a ruse to lure you out here. I fell for the same trick, but in my case, he told me if I retrieved the axe, he'd erase my debts.” His head shook sadly and looked almost on the verge of tears. “I was such an idiot to believe him.”

 Viconia slid up the walls with her usual grace and hunched down behind the parapets and I looked about the abandoned fort and noticed that other than the gatehouse there was no other way out other than a six metre drop over the walls. A trivial height for Viconia and I but looking over the aging and frail Breton before me I knew that he’d be lucky not to end up killed by the fall.

 “You're now the prey in Kurdan's insane hunt, just like I am.” He continued as he looked between Viconia and I as we moved about the courtyard and walls. “And here, we'll most likely die.”

 “Hunt?”

 There was a sigh and he sat down heavily on the pile of rubble that he had been hiding behind. “Kurdan doesn't make most of his money being a simple usurer. He also invented what he calls ‘ _the Hunter’s Run’_. People pay him a great deal of money to hunt and kill living human prey. No questions asked, and he takes care of the bodies. He uses this place as the hunting grounds. I was placed here because he knew someone would go looking for me and it appears as though you too have become the prey for his twisted game.”

 Viconia called out from her place on the battlements and I could feel the anger resonating in every word. “There’s some boats landing on the shore.”

 “How many?” I called out, looking about and realising the opened gatehouse was going to be no hindrance for what was coming.

 “Three boats, four people in each. They must have been waiting offshore for us to arrive.” Several bloodcurdling howls echoed across the island and I felt my guts clench and bowels turn watery with expectation. “And they have dogs.”

 “I'm sorry you got mixed up in all of this.” Aleron had gone as pale as a freshly drained corpse and he hurriedly made the mark of Stendarr with such energy I was surprised his fingers didn’t fly away on their own accord. “I hope you can fight. It's our only chance of escaping alive."

 “How long have you been here?” I spun so fast that he flinched away from me as though stuck.

 “Two days.”

 “Any other way out of the fort or off the island?”

 “Unless you can swim across the open water or find a fisherman that isn’t in Kurdan’s pocket or threatened by him; there’s no way off the island. As for the fort, there is the rear gatehouse in the depths of the central building but its locked. Only the hunters carry the keys for it.”

 The baying of the hounds grew in intensity and I could almost feel them straining at their leashes. From the barking they were sizable animals and trained to hunt humans or other large beasts.

 Viconia dropped lightly to the ground and barely made a sound from the drop. Carefully rising to her feet she brushed the slight traces of dust from her vambraces while looking over Aleron and myself. “Well… They’re coming.”

 “A dozen hunters and a couple of dogs. Not bad odds.”

 Spitting on the ground she looked at me and tightened her hood. “I hate dogs.”

 Looking between the two of us Aleron was beginning to lose himself to his rising panic. “I wish I could help more, but I can't fight. I've never held a weapon before in my life! Please... get us out of here!”

 “Can you find your way to the rear gate?” I asked him, replacing my silver tipped arrow with a cruelly pointed bodkin made of high grade steel.

 He nodded with nervous eyes and dripping with sweat. The whites of his eyes were highly visible now, as he continued looking between us and the open gatehouse in the walls as the sounds of the approaching dogs grew louder.

 “I’m guessing you have some form of plan?” Viconia’s voice was dripping with scorn and sarcasm but she too was listening to the bays of the hunting dogs.

 “The two of us, and a darkened series of tunnels and rooms?” My grin was more terrifying to Aleron as I pulled my mask up over my face and pulled my hood down until all that could be seen was the darkened shadows where my eyes were. “It almost doesn’t seem fair.”

 My grin was returned by one of her own as she tucked her bone white hair into her own hood and ensured her headband was tight.

 As a tiny group we began making our way to the central keep, keeping our eyes on the exterior gatehouse even as I glanced to our elderly charge. “Aleron, I want you to make your way to the back entrance to this place.”

 “But the hunters-”

 “We’ll worry about the hunters. You just get yourself to the other end. I’m guessing this place has been set up like a maze or a series of tunnels?” His feverish nod confirmed what I was beginning to suspect about this place. “This place has been purposely changed to make it easier for these bastards to chase us down. There’s not going to be anywhere to hide and the dogs they have mean that they are prepared for us to run. We’ll hold them off, you just make your way to the other door and wait for us.”

 He saw the darkness in my eyes and the building anger at finding ourselves stuck in such a predicament. He nodded briefly, before shuffling his way as fast as his aging frame would allow him.

 Viconia and I stood in the darkened doorway and watched the opened gatehouse on the far side of the courtyard. “I’ll take care of the dogs.” I said simply, feeling her eyes rest on me for a moment. “We’ll let them into the fort and take them apart.”

 “As always _jaluk_ , your effectiveness in battle makes me ache with desire.” She replied sarcastically, watching as I pulled back on my bow and point it in the direction of taunting hunting calls and howling dogs.

 The group of them appeared in the shadows of the outer gatehouse, clad in various types of armour and with three of them almost being dragged along by the beasts straining on the ends of their leashes. They were all armoured and heavily equipped, almost comically so if they had originally come with the intent of killing an elder Breton with far too many winters under his belt. Against Viconia and I was a different situation entirely as they soon realised as I released my first arrow.

 A Dunmer judging by his netch-hide armour folded over with a gurgling scream as my arrow punched into his chest and speared a lung. Coughing pink froth, he tried to rise to his feet with the help of one of his comrades, but a second arrow punched into him shortly after the first and left him clutching at the feathered shaft where the fletching jutted from his throat. Within a second of appearing one of their number was already down with mortal wounds and they all realised that this hunt was not going to the same as any others they had experienced.

 Nodding to Viconia she vanished into the tunnels like a shadow, moving with all the grace and ability of someone born and bred in the darkness. I fired another arrow that was wasted on a stout roundshield carried by a hulking Nord, before turning and fading into the darkness after Viconia and Aleron.

 The cries of anger and growing bloodlust fought with the baying of the hunting dogs for audial supremacy as I flitted through the shadows of the fort. Like I had suspected, over countless hunts Kurdan had gone to considerable effort to create a series of passages through the rooms and corridors of the abandoned fort. Doorways had been blocked with rubble or forcibly collapsed. Passageways were blocked off by stacked piles of ruined furniture and the broken skeletons of boats wrecked on the beach and several ‘dead ends’ were created that were in a lot of ways not just figurative.

 Within seconds I had vanished down a corridor, purposely travelling down a separate passage to Viconia and using my enhanced senses to track not only the hunters and their animals but Aleron but the panicky tempo of his heart. The darkness slipped away into greyness as crabs and the odd rodent scattered before my unnatural presence and soon I found myself in a position where I decided to make my stand.

 My bow was placed against the wall, carefully out of the way where it wouldn’t get damaged and Sunchild found itself in my hand. The howls of the hunting dogs were echoing through the fort now, their terrible barking adding an extra level of horror to the extraordinary situation. I stood in the centre of the passage before the hollowed-out room that had once been a barracks and waited, tapping Sunchild against the doorframe to send the metallic echo through the darkness and draw the pursuers towards me.

 I did not have long to wait, as the excitable growls and barking of the hunting beasts grew in volume until they exploded around the corner. Thickly muscled, the enormous Colovian mastiffs barrelled their way down the hall in my direction as they followed my scent. Grinning fiercely, my face tightening under the mask I saw how all three of the dogs had chosen to come after me once the slipped their leashes and readying myself for their charge I met them head on.

 The first of the enormous brutes, easily half my bodyweight and consisting of dense bone and solid muscle launched itself at me with the intent to rend my throat or drag me down by the arm. Bred for hunting boars; they were solid creatures of brute strength and obedience, further enhanced by the fact that they wore a collection of thick leather and metal plates protecting them from a blades edge or tusk.

 In midair I caught the animal by the throat, picking it up bodily with my left hand and slamming it into the wall even as I gutted it and cut its heart out with Sunchild. It died in a second, its barking roar cut off in mid breath before I hurled its corpse at the other two following it. All three went down in a tangle of limbs and gore, their charge stopping as surely as they had run head first into a brick wall and I faced off against them as the surviving two picked themselves up.

 Growling and snapping they faced me, their training allowing them to stand before me and lead the trailing hunters to my location. Understanding the threat of the sword in my hand the two of them hunched down like coiled springs, both still reaching my hip in height and easily sixty kilograms of muscle and animalistic fury.

 My own animal rose to the surface and I roared at the two hunting dogs with a face split by a fanged filled maw. The unnatural nature of my vampiric side and the daedric corruption was enough to transend species and for a moment they paused, their barking and growling stopping as confusion entered their canine minds. Ears lowered flat to skulls, tails suddenly dropping between their legs as they caught my foul sulphuric scent on the air and with some deep-seated instinct they took a step backward away from my darkened form before bolting from the room back the way they came.

 Only seconds behind them the group of hunters encountered their trained and highly prized animals sprinting from the depths of the fort as fast as their legs could carry them. I heard one of their number go down as he was barrelled off his feet by sixty kilograms of terrified animal, cursing and moaning with pain even as the rest of his party whistled and tried in vain to regain control of their dogs. Buoyed by the confidence that travelling in a group of armed men provides, the half dozen that rounded the corner were beginning to feel the first prangs of uncertainty. One of their number was dead even before they got into the fort itself, and now two of their maneaters had run whimpering and pissing themselves in fear instead of hunting and killing the trio of individuals in the ruins. My bloodthirsty roars hadn’t helped their morale and they now moved a little more cautiously, their taunting cries falling silent as they readied their weapons and stalked the ruins.

 Their cries of surprise and exclamation reached my ears as they stumbled across the eviscerated corpse of the third dog. Before fading into the shadows, I had hacked it apart, spreading entrails, limbs and blood across several metres of passageway and walls. Their uncertainty was now growing every stronger, used to hunting defenceless men and women they were not mentally prepared for facing someone that could and would make a fight of it.

 “What in Oblivion’s name has Kurdan dumped in here this time...” One muttered as he stepped through the cooling remains. To a man they were sweating now, glancing ahead into the shadows but failing to detect me from where I stood in the room.

 “This is nothing.” Another one said, moving into the centre of the room with a burning torch held before him. An orc of considerable build, he squinted into the darkness and tried to make out footprints in the dust of the floor but only seeing Aleron’s. “One time he managed to get one of those Morag Tong fellas in here. That was _interesting_ to say the least.”

 Ghosting around to the rear of the group, I slid up close behind one of their number. The handful at the front were the only ones holding torches which allowed me to get in close without losing my ability to merge with the darkness.

 “I’m not sure if I’d want to be part of this with an _assassin_ running loose.” Dressed in a richly made silk surcoat and chainmail, the Imperial in front of me shook his head hard enough that his nasal helm rattled. “I didn’t pay Kurdan to get killed.”

 “ _But that’s exactly what’s going to happen._ ” I hissed into his ear, feeling the jolt of terrified surprise flow through him and the nearest hunters as I appeared behind them.

 Sunchild punched through the back of his neck, leaving him gurgling and spasming as thirty centimetres of blade erupted out of his mouth in a flood of gore. To their credit the other five moved with remarkable ease, twisting with all the speed granted to them by adrenaline and bloodlust to find themselves staring into a monster.

 Little more than a blackened silhouette in the gloom I exploded into activity, twisting and weaving through them as they hacked and slashed at me. They moved precisely, covering each other with a practiced skill even as I got amongst them and killed relentlessly

 A blade was parried by Sunchild, leaving the owner open and free for my dagger to slash his throat and leave him clutching at the mortal wound. A downwards strike of a mace from the orc was simply twisted aside from, leaving it to thud into the floor and the owner openly gaping at my unnatural speed. I ducked down, punching him in the face, feeling the whistling crossbow bolt pass though the space where my shoulders had been even as I flicked my wrist and sent my dagger tumbling into the horrified face of the crossbowman. Another blade was parried aside with a clang of metal and a shower of sparks, grasping the haft of a spear with my suddenly free hand and wrenching its owner off his feet and spearing the orc in the chest with its wicked point.

 The falling crossbowman’s sheathed blade was pulled from its owner’s belt as he writhed on the floor, screaming with a bloodied face and a dagger lodged deep into a cheek and jawbone. Holding the hilt blade down I jammed it into a foot, pinning one of the hunters to the floor shrieking even as I kicked him away with enough force that a large portion of filled boot was left behind.

 I was untouchable, twisting aside from attacks and leaving them utterly confounded as I took lives with impunity. The downed orc with the spear in the chest roared as he tried to rise before I stabbed him in the face with my acquired sword. Another dropped on his face as Sunchild plucked him bodily from the floor, folding him over the blade before twisting it out in a wash of blood and dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Before they had even realised what was happening four of them were dead or dying messily on the floor and only two remained.

 The Nord with the battered round shield came at me swinging, hiding behind the layers of laminated wood and metal and slashing and cutting with his fighting axe. I caught the curved head with the tip of Sunchild, twisting it out of his grasp and grabbing his metal rimmed shield with my other hand. With the sound of a collapsing belltower he bounced off the wall, the runic steel armour protecting him from the impact against the aged stones but doing little more for him as I stabbed him in the chest and speared his heart.

 Screaming with terror at the ease that I had slew his comrades, the final and last hunter dropped his hammer and ran, fleeing in the direction of the dogs and barely even making it to the doorway. Falling upon him I picked him from the ground, lifting him up with both arms with enough force that he rebounded off the ceiling in a shower of dust and stone fragments. Now winded and gasping for breath there was nothing he could do as I pulled my mask away from my changed features and sunk my fangs into his throat.

 Six hunters had died in twice as many seconds and I stood up amidst the carnage, licking the wetness around my lips with a tongue that felt unusually long and scaly around the sharpness of my fangs. The crossbowman was left writhing on the floor, desperately pulling at the dagger lodged deep into his face and hacking wetly as his sinuses and throat continuously filled with blood. The Redguard I had lifted from the floor with Sunchild was moaning and clutching at his belly where the curved edge had made a mockery of the brigandine leather and left him gutted, and with precise stabs I finished both off, licking the blood from my blades before returning them to their sheaths.

 Sounds of fighting throughout the fort was dying away as quickly as their owners and I could hear the suddenly cut-short whimpers as the other two wardogs were slain. Judging by the cries of pain and suffering, Viconia had dealt with the other hunters and the dogs had been killed by one or more of the hunters themselves as they turned on their handlers in their fear of me.

 The sensations of multiple heartbeats in the ruins dwindled away to my mind and I could sense the panicky heartbeat of Aleron in the farthest reaches, and the slightly increased heartrate of Viconia’s. Ghosting through the ruins after clearing the pockets and fingers of the deceased hunters of valuables and a collect of random keys I quickly made my way to Viconia.

 She sensed by presence as I wafted through the door where she was surrounded by a collection of messily slaughtered hunters. Instinctively her sword came up to my throat even before I had finished emerging from the shadows, looking on Viconia with my mortal eyes and seeing little more than her lithe shadow and the glints of her eyes in the depths of her hood.

 “So much for taking care of the dogs.” She said simply, the annoyance dripping from every word as Dragonbane slid into its sheath once more. “I’m not going to do your job for you all the time _mal’ai_.”

 “I killed more of the hunters than you.” I said simply as my face returned to normal. “I wasn’t expecting the dogs to run away from me.”

 “Well, if you bathed more often then you mightn’t fight off adversaries with stench alone.” Drawing a knife she cut away a couple of keys hanging around their deceased owners throats before acquiring their rings by the expediency of hacking off fingers. Her anger had definitely been increasing every day since that morning in Glenvar and I didn’t have a single clue what to do about it. For a minute or two I watched as she satisfied herself with the small collection of baubles and coins that she found on the hunters’ bodies before the two of us faded through the shadows of the fort, leaving the slaughter behind us.

 The exit to the ruins was in a sorry state; a tiny open aired gatehouse where the roof had collapsed long ago and left a ten metre by ten metre open space of gravel and broken bricks. The doors however were quite possibly the best maintained pieces of construction on the entire island and had been secured with chains thicker than a thumb and a lock that looked strong enough to withstand blows from a Warhammer.

 The gates however were already open, the lock discarded on the ground and chains hanging from the metal spikes that had been rammed into the wood of the door. Thick and unyielding, the wooden bar that had normally kept the doors closed from the other side had also been thrown to the ground, its treachery no longer needed.

 As Viconia and I exited the darkness of the fort’s interior we both came to a sudden halt. Standing in the now opened doorway was the towering form of Kurdan, holding the kneeling Aleron in front of him by the hair. The old man had been beaten in the minutes it had taken for Viconia and I to make our way to the rear gate, and a quick glance at the enormous plank that normally barred the doors from the outside told me everything I needed to know. This ‘game’ as such was never meant for the hunted to survive.

 “I'm impressed that you killed all my clients.” Kurdan exclaimed as we exited the ruins, covered in gore with not a drop our own. “Doesn't matter. More will come along with their purses fat with gold and ‘earts lustin' for blood.”

 He was now dressed in thick orichalcum plates from the heart of Orsinium; jagged layers overlapping and providing incredible protection while almost looking cobbled together messily. Now easily weighing as much as Viconia and I combined he was an impressive sight, if considerably lessened by the fact that a dozen others similarly dressed were left as cooling corpses in the forts behind us in less than half an hour.

 Obviously waiting for us or the hunters to appear, he had been at the gate when Aleron had run in terror from the tunnels. In the minutes since recapturing him he had proceeded to beat him mercilessly, leaving the old man’s face a map of pain and horrid bruising under the thinning skin and blood running from the ruin of his face. Groaning with agony and barely conscious, the only way he was remaining upright on his knees was Kurdan’s fingers wrapped in the grey mop of hair on his head.

 Kurdan gestured to Aleron forcibly kneeling between us and chuckled. “Too bad ‘bout Aleron. At least now he's free of ‘is debt... _ha ha ha ha_!"

 I shifted forward slightly, and he raised his axe threateningly; the enormous butterfly head of the battleaxe easily as large as my torso. Shaking his head to Viconia and I he nodded to the crumbling walls of the fort and the shadow that rested on top of them on my side.

 “Do you really think I could afford to let you leave here?” The rumbling of his voice echoed from the depths of his chest and I glanced at the furred figure pointing a bow at Viconia and I. Either one of the hunters or a college in his foul schemes, the Khajiit held the bow at full nock without the slightest tremble of effort.

 The tusked grin was savage as he rested the bladed edge of the battleaxe against Aleron’s throat. “Drop yer weapons.”

 I hesitated for a moment but Kurdan merely pressed the razored edge into Aleron’s neck until a dribble of blood began running down. Growling my displeasure, I dropped Sunchild into the gravel with my dagger following a second later. Viconia looked at me with complete disgust, muttering my name intermingling with curses and drowish swearing as she too dropped Dragonbane.

 Grinning even more terribly, face split with his tusks and eyes narrowing, Kurdan moved the battleaxe away from where it was cutting Aleron’s throat and laughed even louder. “Do you really think I could afford to let you leave here? No prey has ever left this island alive, _and I aim to keep it that way_.”

 With a gesture to his archer I heard the slapping sound of the bowstring and immediately my instincts and the vampire took over. Faster than what either of them could see I twisted in place, my face drawing tight and fangs splitting my lips apart as I turned and faced the Khajiit. Time slowing to my enhanced senses, I saw the way how the arrow curved with the force provided by the string and the bow, snapping it forward and rustling over the creature’s furred forefinger. With surprising ease I beheld the snarling expression of the cat-person, seeing the way its chest vibrated as it purred with the pleasure of sudden death even as I reached out and plucked the arrow out of the air as though I was merely catching a snowflake.

 Time seemed to rush back to its correct speed and everyone, with the exception of the now-unconscious Aleron stared in a mixture of astonishment and horror at how I had caught the arrow. Freshly fed, I felt strong and absurdly fast, proving so when I lowered my arm holding the arrow and snapped it between my fingers.

 Kurdan in his surprised dropped the nerveless body of Aleron to fall flat on his face in the dirt and the Khajiit stood like a furred statue, looking between me and his bow as he attempted to comprehend what had just occurred. Viconia however reacted far sooner; twisting and spitting an invocation that forced a headache into the back of my mind while hurling a bolt of lightning into the archer’s chest. With a rumble of thunder the singed corpse of the Khajiit smacked wetly into the gravel, fur smouldering from the discharge but now extremely dead.

 In his own surprise Kurdan reacted just how any of his kind did when under stress; he gripped his battleaxe in both hands, dropped his shoulder and charged.

 With a dozen metres between us and our weapons on the ground neither Viconia or I moved initially. Instead, reaching up behind myself to where the dark green hilt jutted from between my shoulder blades I gripped it tight in my fists. After cutting a hole large enough for the blade and hilt to sit comfortably I had strapped the Light of Dawn down the length of my spine where I had carried it since. It was the only position that I could comfortably carry the ninety-centimetre blade and not have it continuously caught up when I moved. The hilt sat behind my hooded and coif covered head and the point of the blade reached my thighs but it allowed me to move and fight with no hindrance.

 Roaring on the top of his lungs and ejecting a foul mixture of tobacco juice and spit as he charged, Kurdan rushed across the open space with all the force of a charging ox. Instead of meeting his onrushing rush I merely stepped to the side, feeling the breeze of the enormous axe across my face as it cut where I had been only a moment before. Eyes only for me, he swung the weapon in wild blows, spinning it about and holding the entire weighted haft above his head in a block as I drew the gleaming edge of the Light of Dawn and cut down vertically in one single move.

 Nothing appeared to happen, and a look of childlike confusion was plastered on his face as he stepped back from me, lowering his axe and staring at the way I held the ancient blade in both hands. I had moved with such sudden and shocking speed like when I had caught the arrow that he seemed unsure of my actions, glancing between Viconia and myself and readying himself for another attack.

 “Is that sword made oof airth oo soomeginth…” he slurred, one eye rolling up into the back of his skull as he suddenly appeared to have a stroke. One side of his face twitched and drooped as though it had the consistency of wax before he fell forward and split into two separate halves from forehead to groin. Even the enormous battle-axe split in the centre of the haft, cutting the word _Dragol_ into _Dra_ and _Gol_.

 “ _Vith._ ” was all Viconia could mutter as she saw the damage that the Light of Dawn could when utilised by someone with my vampiric speed and strength. Even the vaunted protection of orichalcum plate armour had been nothing more than smoke to the enchanted blade.

 The island was now little more than a tomb for Kurdan and those foolish enough to get involved in his sick schemes. Aleron was alive for the most part. The beating that he had sustained in the plated hands of the orc usurer leaving him almost crippled and comatose as we managed to drag one of the tiny boats away from the shore. Through pure luck the wind was blowing towards the city and we managed to hail one of the many fishing boats to assist in getting back to Bravil. A gold septim smoothed our passage and with our bloodied and dangerous appearances the threat of any potential swindle or doublecross was removed.

 Aleron was left in the capable hands of the priests of Mara in the towering cathedral and despite his age and injuries we were told that he would make it. He would be missing teeth and have a limp for the rest of his natural life but both he and his thankful wife would be able to leave Bravil for the fresh start that she had spoken about. The contract payment, while measly compared to some of the others we had made in the previous weeks was still gratefully received from the overjoyed Ursanne Loche; providing another small collection of coins that went a long way towards allowing us to clean our armour and weapons.

 In the evening I completed a piece of personal business that Viconia especially approved of. The story of how Kurdan’s bisected and severed head had appeared at his table in the Lonely Suitor Lodge swept through the city like wildfire. With my vampiric nature it had been surprisingly simple to slide through the shadows and deposit the grisly trophy on the table without anyone noticing but it was difficult to keep the savage grin from my face at the screams and cries as it was discovered. He had been well known for his heavy-handed methods of collecting the debts that he was owed and the fact that he had last been seen boasting about how he was going to ‘ _teach the heroes of Kvatch a lesson_ ’ underlined our reputations. For the following days we noticed an obvious increase in deference whenever we travelled abroad in the city. Even the usual collection of pickpockets and cutpurses that shadowed every street corner suddenly began giving us wide berths and keeping their hands visible while in our presence.

 Otherwise the city was dull. Choosing to remain in the local chapterhouse where the burning incense attempted to keep the stench of the city outside we spent time within the basement. Located in one of the richer districts on something that resembled solid ground, the chapterhouse was one of the few stone built structures within the city walls. Nestled close to the Cathedral district it was the best of a bad bunch, providing little more than lice free, dry beds that in Bravil was considered a blessing.

 Those in the guild were used to performing hunts against bog ogres or hiring themselves out as muscle to the locals in various degrees of legality but the very nature of the city ensured that the members were more martial than most of their brothers and sisters in other cities. There were only the quick or the dead in Bravil, and those who couldn’t defend themselves soon found themselves floating face down in the mud that slid beneath the wooden platforms.

 Despite our reputations, for the better part of three days we stayed in the chapterhouse, training against the other fighters. I found myself putting more and more distance between myself and Viconia as her mood continued to sour. Her opinions and thoughts of how we had willingly put ourselves in Kurdan’s trap and the way that I had dropped my weapons without hesitation only seemed to add further fuel to the roaring forge-heat of her temper. Most within the guild soon learned to clear her path as she prowled the chapterhouse’s halls, especially after more than one of them ended up with a black eye or other various bruises as a result.

 Stripped to the waist, wielding nothing more dangerous than a wooden gladius I faced off against a pair of the Bravil guildsmen. By now all three of us were sporting red welts where the dulled edges had slapped flesh but I felt proud in the fact that they were suffering more than me.

 Vincent Galien staggered backwards with an oath of pain as he clutched the fresh mark across his stomach, twisting away and trying to laugh his way through the pain. With a spin I had managed to slap my training sword in a way that would have left him scooping up his entrails had it been a live blade. Good naturedly he lowered his own sword in defeat as his fellow guildmate was left staggering up as she tried unsuccessfully to fend off a flurry of blows and strikes that left her dropping her sword after I cracked it across her knuckles.

 “If you keep beating everyone to a pulp Kaius, then I won’t have anyone to train with.”

 I laughed as I gave a quick bow that was half in respect and half teasing in the direction of the spectators and the speaker. Between the metallic clangs of training and forging I looked over to the muscled form of the guild smith and gestured to the training ring. “You can always face me if you want.”

 Tadrose, skin dark as the coals she used to fuel her forge laughed and blew me a kiss. “You wouldn’t be able to handle me baby.”

 The mutual laughter from the guildsmen on the well-worn joke echoed in the muted basement. Tadrose was a solid woman, hardened from years of swinging a smithing hammer and a blade in service to the guild, but she and Vincent were partners in more than guild membership. In our travels they seemed to be the only couple in any form of relationship in the entire guild.

 “Who’s up for something different?” I called out, looking about for any takers for another training session.

 After watching me successively beat a quarter of the member’s present there was a little trepidation from the hardened fighters. All morning we had been training until sweat ran like rivers and while I had been taking part in nearly every bout I still felt surprisingly fresh. Everyone had a healthy respect for Viconia and myself and knew that we were hardened warriors even without our growing reputations.

 “I’ll have a go.” Grunted Skagvur; a nordic wall of muscle and runic tattoos.

 “Excellent. Your choice of course.”

 He smiled, a pink knife-wound of a mouth shifting the braided mass of a beard. “Full armour and training weapons. I don’t need a new scar from that fancy pigsticker of yours.”

 “Sounds good to me.” Excusing my way through some of the watchers I made my way over to one of the rough armour stands that also passed some of its time as a training dummy. Dressed in little more than boots, pants and belt the rest of my equipment hung from the sorrowful dummy frame that looked every inch as battered as what it really was.

 Roughly attempting to dry the increasing layer of sweat off my torso with a linen towel I took gulping mouthfuls of brackish water mixed in with alcoholic spirits. Dysentery was rife in the city and even after boiling the water I ensured that a healthy mix of herbs and spirits were added to further reduce the chances of disease.

 Behind me the sounds of renewed fighting and mocking catcalls began anew as several of the other fighters took this moment to spar on their own. In good humour the insults and jibes bounced harmlessly off those in the ring, proving that a thick skin was almost of greater importance than a sturdy shield in any martial service. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Viconia walk down the stairs and into the basement, looking about briefly with the usual scowl darkening her features. Watching her carefully I pulled my tunic on, shrugged on my daedroth scale armour and began the somewhat laborious process of buckling on my breastplate.

 She gracefully strode through the basement, briefly glancing over to the fighters as the sound of a solid blow and a cry of pain of a solid strike hit home. The laughter and catcalls from the spectators meant that it was far from serious, but then again losing an eye in service to the guild was only considered to be a 'minor setback'.

 Gliding across the floor with the grace and majesty of a Blackmarsh jaguar the expression on her face was even more dour and humourless than normal. Since returning from Fort Grief I had been subconsciously and yet actively avoiding her as my mere presence seemed to act as a lightning rod to her anger and frustration. Training with the other members of the guild proved to be a useful distraction and it had so far kept me away from any further arguments such as the one in Glenvar County.

 Sitting down with a thump I dropped into one of the well-worn and frequently repaired chairs near my armour. The minotaur leather boots rose up almost to my knees and provided the perfect underlayer for my ebony-steel alloy greaves and sabatons protecting the tops of my feet. Pulling the straps tight I glanced up as she strode over and planted herself heavily into another chair next to me, staring intently into my skull.

 There was a dark expression of the like I had not seen on her face before, the eyes somehow consumed with anger and sadness at the same time. “I have a confession to make to you.” She said simply, the words hollow and devoid of emotion despite the almost imperceptible tremor that coursed through her.

 I stopped in mid motion, still holding the thick leather strap that secured the sabaton to my foot in the gap made by the solid heel. “Is this the best time or place for us to have a discussion?” I asked simply, finishing attaching the sabaton and continuing attaching the rest of my leg armour. “It’s not exactly the most personal of places to talk about anything remotely serious.”

 There was a flash of fire in her yellow eyes and I cursed inwardly as I realised that yet again I had inadvertently insulted her. “I have a confession for you and you decide to be such an ignorant fool.” Forceful like a strike of a mace, her anger could be felt in every syllable and I looked back up to her as I pulled a vambrace strap tight with my teeth.

 “Look,” grunting with the effort to pull the last strap tight I wriggled it experimentally to ensure it was secure. “I’m always willing to talk, I’m just saying how this mightn't be the best time or place if you have anything personal to discuss.”

 She scowled, but still looked around at the dozen fighters who were all standing around the training floor and shouting approval and advice to the few pairs sparring.

 “Do you recall my tale of when I first arrived on the surface,” She asked, purposely ignoring the sudden yelping from one of the recruits as another blow was struck home. “and of my story of the farmer and his son?”

 I felt the shiver of apprehension as I remembered how cold she was as she discussed what had occurred to her in the tiny farm near Bruma. For a moment I was returned to the forest south of Chorral, staring over the flickering campfire as it spat twirling embers into the sky and the threats she had made with the story’s telling.

 “It is… difficult to forget.” I replied. Carefully rising to my feet, I strapped my pauldrons to my shoulders, feeling their comforting weight press down as I reached out for the padding and chainlinked coif.

 “Then you should forget what I had said as it is nothing more than a lie.”

 I stopped in mid motion and looked down at her serious and hardened expression. There was a deep burning anger within here and I was struck dumb with a feeling of shock and significant amount of confusion. Looking over her and the way that she was forcing herself to remain expressionless, the only hint to exactly what she was feeling was the swirling feelings deep in her eyes.

 “Lied? About what part exactly?”

 “Almost all of it.” Leaning back with a sigh she folded her arms and innocently began checking her strangely perfect fingernails. Despite everything we had been through and the sheer amount of travelling and fighting we had taken part in I couldn’t think of a single time that her nails were ever cracked or otherwise ruined. “There was the farmer and his family, but the story of how they took me prisoner, used me and then buried me alive was completely untrue.”

 Her lack of emotion and the way she was forcing herself to remain appearing effortlessly relaxed was an act. Inside, I could see that she was almost tearing herself apart.

 “You see, what had really happened was that he and his son did not force themselves on me. It was I who used them. I laid with him several times for my own needs and did so willingly. It was only his wife who drove me out, and set the Bravil Guard upon me. Like a Succubus I have whored my way through everything, taking what favours I could get. I have used everyone I have met on the surface, and you are no different.”

 At first jealousy sunk its claws into my heart and mind and I could feel the rising wave of heat and clenching ache that accompanied it. The heat soon began burning more fiercely, bringing with it the rage of being used and having my emotions torn with. There was depression deep in my soul, but the white-hot heat of anger and lust for more than just blood suffocated it for the moment at least.

 Tingling, every bone in my jaws seemed to squirm under my flesh with my increasing emotions and it took all my willpower to ignore the way how every letter wormed its way into my brain. Struggling to regain a cold level of detachment I forced myself to rethink over everything she had ever told me, remembering the stories she had told me of the Underdark and her home city, the bloodcurdling rites demanded by the spider queen and the horror of her everyday life.

 I also thought of how she had come to the surface, the story she told me of the darkness and pain and torture she had endured. There were lies threaded through her tales of suffering and through her histories and deceit was as much a part of her as her beautiful, scarred flesh. She watched the surge and turmoil of emotions running through me with an enforced smirk of arrogance on her beautiful features and something in my mind _clicked._

 Burd; my old friend from the legion and now Bruma’s captain of the guard entered my mind. He had told me even before Viconia and I had first spoken of how she had been arrested for murder. How she had burned a farmer and his son alive but that he somehow believed that she had cause to do so. A succubus of duplicity and lies Viconia might be, but my old friend? _Old Stonewall?_ He wouldn’t have been able to tell a lie if his life depended on it.

 Thundering realisation of the truth slammed into my mind with an almost physical force. I mightn’t understand her reasons for doing so, but I no longer heeded her words as truth. I forced my treasonous features into a neutral expression, looked over how she sat before me and shrugged.

 “Okay then.”

 Surprise; pure and undiluted surprise consumed the expression of haughty arrogance and inherent challenge and her jaw dropped. Of all the reactions she was expecting from me, indifference was definitely not one of them. For several seconds she sat there blankly, trying and failing to release the hold her throat had on the words until the familiar burning hatred and anger rose once more.

 “Why aren't you disgusted by this?” she spat, loud enough to draw the attention of several of the spectators from their entertainment. “Turn from me! Spit on me and curse my name damn you! Why don't you despise and hate what I just said?”

 My eyes travelled the entirety of the room and the handful of inquisitive faces of the guildsmen as they looked at us while whispering amongst themselves. Viconia's outburst was enough to draw their attention away for the most part and there was even the slightest hesitation in some of those sparring.

 Standing much taller than her in her seat and now fully armoured, I leant over and pressed a gloved hand against the back of her chair. Staring deep into her eyes I could smell the familiar intoxicating perfume of her flesh over the smell of oils, leather and unwashed bodies within the training hall. I continued to lean over as she refused to shy away, not budging an inch in a combination of refusing to show weakness or cower to me or anyone else. Almost close enough to press our lips together and kiss once more I could feel the simmering level of heat from within her body through her clothes and armour. Despite the obsidian colouring of her skin I could see the blood rushing through her face and darkening it noticeably as her anger rose at my proximity.

 “Why? The reason is very simple...” I said, my lips only a few short centimetres from her ear. “ _You... Are... Lying..._ ”

 Her head flashed around and she stared at me with such intensity that I was momentarily taken aback. With the loud scrape of wood on stone she got to her feet, knocking the chair over and glaring at me with rage.

 “Bastard!” she yelled so loudly that she caught the attention of everyone within the room and stopped the training fights in mid blow. “Stubborn bastard! Why must I trust you!”

 Turning on her heel, her white-blonde hair whipping around her she threw the chair across the room with such force that it shattered into firewood on impact. Her rage was dangerous, and with a strength that was a match to mine she radiated a dangerous aura.

 “Viconia!” I called out, kicking a table aside and overturning it with a chatter of metal and equipment. “Viconia!”

 I stumbled after her, catching up to her before she had even gone a dozen paces towards the stairs and grabbing her by the arm.

 Faster than what I could follow, she twisted in my grasp, spinning so quickly that she blurred in my vision and the impact of the blow sent tears to my eyes. The stinging impact of the slap had almost knocked me off balance, staggering me with the impact and yet I somehow managed to keep hold of her right arm.

 “Let me go _jaluk_!” She hissed, throwing an open fingered strike at my face that I neatly blocked with my left arm despite the tears of pain in my eyes. Already my face was swelling, blood rushing to the growing hand imprint across the right side of my face and my mouth was filling with the familiar taste of copper.

 “You're not going to get rid of me that easily.” I said to her, blocking another pair of powerful jabs at my face and ribs. “I'm not going to let you push me away.”

 With fire in her eyes she suddenly twisted in my grasp, wrenching my wrist around and throwing me off my feet. In a similar movement that had left an Orc in a coma she rolled and used my larger mass and higher centre of gravity against me, leaving me sprawled on my back and winded.

 I could hear the excited and nervous chattering of the Bravil Fighters as everyone within the basement moved in a position to watch Viconia and myself. Ignoring the way my ribs protested I rolled and pushed up with my arms, throwing myself to my feet and narrowly managing to dodge the next two blows.

 Her rage was leaving her skin burning to the touch, and my senses were picking up the rapid pulse of her heart as she began cursing at me in Drow. Although she had caught me the extreme basics of her language and I barely understood one word out of every three, the emotion behind the words was all too clear.

 “ _Ori’gato uns’aa alu dos fa’la zatoast_!”

 I ducked and blocked two more strikes, even managing to catch one of her fists in my own before she repaid my hubris with a powerful right cross. This was no friendly bout or training session; she was fighting for real and intended me harm. Sparring her was one thing, fighting her for real was something else entirely. Even the nature of our full contact spars was subdued from the mere fact of lacking deadly intent. Now that all restraint had been removed from her mind I found myself almost completely on the defensive and seriously disadvantaged. Without the will to do her harm as she intended for me I could do little more than soak up her punches and blows and look for an opening to subdue her.

 Unable to bring myself to injure her in any form despite the seriousness of the fight she quickly turned it to her advantage. With one fist trapped in the palm of my own she twisted it around, popping my fingers open as though levered and punched me with full force in the mouth. Again I felt my lip burst, blood splattering across the floor as I spat wads of gore and fragments of teeth. While losing teeth or having them cracked was no longer a permanent injury for me it was still not a pleasant experience. As I struggled to remain on my shaky legs I felt the rolling waves of agony flow through my jaws from the shattered nerve endings.

 Staggering backwards I saw her slide a foot across the ground and drawing her opened hands across her chest in a move that belied extreme focus and agility. What little I had seen of her fighting unarmed was almost terrifying in comparison to what little the legion taught its soldiers. Suddenly thankful of all the fighting and tavern brawls I had experienced I punched my own fists out in front of me, holding them out front with elbows bent. With one fist hovering near my sternum and the other pointed towards her and twisted so my knuckles faced her vertically, I spat another wad of blood and part of an incisor.

 By now all the guildsmen within the training room had ceased their activity and crowded around this impromptu fight. Tadrose had moved away from the forge, leaving the latest of her works to cool from being beaten back into shape and Skagvur stood in his full Nordic plate, somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t the one fighting me. Almost all of them were watching intently as Viconia and I fought, watching with smirks and grins as she went about beating me into a pulp after I had spent the day effortlessly flooring them all. Several of the members were already taking bets on the outcome of the fight which my enhanced hearing allowed me to feel annoyed at how they didn’t favour my chances.

 Encircling the two of us, the fighters were still giving us a wide berth in a large semicircle that left Viconia and I almost with our backs to the wall. As she had fought I had managed to work my way between Viconia and the stairs leading out of the basement; a fact that she quickly realised. Shrieking with rage she launched into an attack, lashing out with bone splintering kicks, strikes and punches that I could do little more than roll with or try to take on the thicker protection of my armour. Several times I found myself thanking my luck that I had been preparing for a fully armoured fight with training weapons as if I had remained unarmoured I would have already been down with serious injuries. Every strike slammed through my defences with incredible force or I somehow managed to dodge quickly enough that I felt little more than the wind off her limbs.

 Like her skill with a blade she fought with a mixture of solid fists and outstretched strikes with her fingers, twirling around and flowing one move into another until she became a whirlwind of attacks. For once in my life I fought like a legionary rather than a forester, blocking with my forearms and fists, turning blows aside and soaking up the punishment as I did little in return. If I truly had intended her harm as she did to me the fight could’ve been different but instead I was left with nothing else to do but wear her down and exhaust her.

 All the way she spat curses swore at me in her native tongue, her words flowing like her attacks I almost felt as though her words were stinging more than her successful blows. Lashing out with a savage backhand she struck at my face as I hunched down to protect myself, which allowed me to twist my arm and catch hers in an armpit. Locking down the limb I suddenly found myself closest to her than what I had in several days, feeling the burning rage within her skin despite the fact that I was fully armoured and she was dressed in her clothes and daedroth scale shirt. The intensity of her anger and rage almost felt strong enough to singe my skin.

 Despite effectively locking her in a position that most people would never be able to break free, I had again misjudged her skill in fighting. Using my own strength and centre of gravity against me and locking a knee against my breastplate, she used my armour as a springboard to kick herself upwards and smash the other knee right under my jaw. Again I was left staggering backwards and forced to release the hold on her arm, unable to do anything as she turned the leap into a spin before smashing me across the face with a minotaur leather boot.

 For a second I was airborne until I came down hard on one of the nearby tables that immediately transformed into firewood and kindling. Plate, cups, cutlery and someone’s unfinished meal were hurled through the air in fragments and in an explosion of pottery and metal I found myself once again on my back and winded.

 Rising to my feet I cast the battered half of a table and leg off with a roar of building anger. Unbidden, the vampire began lending its strength to me, filling my arms and body with power. The ruined chunk of wood shattered against the wall into a shower of splinters that left several guildsmen cursing. Even as I hated myself for succumbing I knew that without the vampire there was no way that I could be a match to the lightning-fast drow.

 “You're not going to get rid of me Viconia!” I yelled, my throat growling out the words as the Vampire within tightened my vocal cords from the strain of the fight.

 “ _Inbau vithus_!” She spat, eyes darting about before tearing a dagger from a nearby weapon rack and hurling it at me.

 Just as the time in Fort Grief time seemed to slow and I felt the vampire take control. The blade seemed to curl its way out of her fingers, tumbling end over end as it passed through the space between us. Twisting out of an adrenaline fuelled reflex I turned at the waist and felt, rather than saw the way how the dagger missed me with less than a handspan of air between it and my chest. If I hadn’t moved it would had sunk to the hilt in the space just above the armoured gorget, and would have been a killing strike.

 The sudden surge of vampiric adrenaline left me readied for the next one, as a second found itself pulled from the walls and thrown shortly after the first. This one looped through the air, drawing circles with its hilt and blade even as I reached out, twisting my fingers and hands and instead of catching it, redirected it away and behind me.

 Twirling the blade in the palm of my hand with little more than a pair of fingers I spun on my heel, using my own momentum and the force of the dagger to flick it off at the wall. There was a crunch of masonry and the tiniest hum of quivering metal as it lodged deep in the stonework and mortar, leaving the room utterly silent at not only my speed, but the way I had parried a thrown dagger.

 “Viconia! Please stop!”

 Several the guildsmen had been considering stepping in to break up our fight, especially some of the more senior members. But now that the room had suddenly begun playing host to flying knives and my own abilities in dodging and deflecting them put that idea to rest. With indecent haste they began rushing for the exit, several of their number covering each other with shields as another knife and even a shortsword _spranged_ off the floor and walls.

 She was no longer merely intent on storming off, the battle rage that I had seen on occasion during our travels surfacing and matching my daedric intensity in its terrible power. Looking into her eyes I could only see the burning desire to do me harm; to shed her fears and internal torments in my blood. There was a dangerous insanity bubbling to the surface that I felt a strange, twisted kinship with.

 The feeling of familiarity didn’t help me in the slightest as she grasped a hilt of a steel gladius from a rack on the wall, tearing it away with a sizable chunk of wood with a roar of effort. Now armed with a live blade the dynamic of the fight shifted yet again and I felt the first hints of fear in my belly.

 Slamming with a resounding boom, the door to the upper levels closed as a handful of the more senior guildsmen made the decision to let Viconia and I to finished sorting out our differences. Only when the noise in the training hall stopped did I expect them to return and now that there were now witnesses I released my darker side further. With Sunchild being a little too deadly and several metres away with the last of my equipment, I too ripped a sword from the wall mounted racks. Against a typical steel blade, the danger of hurting Viconia was too great but I couldn’t help feeling a tingle of nostalgia as I found myself wielding a legion sword once more.

 Sparks filled the air and I felt each jolt run through my arm as I blocked and parried her moves. She was like water, flowing in and around my guard and it was only by fully embracing my darker side that I was not impaled on the spot. The bones of my face restructured themselves once more, and I could feel the dozens of pops and miniature crunches as my cheekbones seemed to push out of my face. My single intact fang pushed my lips apart in a lopsided smile and almost as though a lantern had been lit in my mind I suddenly found myself being able to keep up with her.

 I could see my eyes in the reflection in her own, and she too seemed to be changing into her own darker side. I had always known that as a Drow, she had a darker side to her soul that matched the world where she had come from, but I never realised how profound it really was. Her skin seemed to take on a darker shade of Ebony and even her eyes changed colour until they were burning with a yellow brightness that matched the sun itself. They shone with a powerful intensity and soon we were both trading blows that the others would've struggled to see let alone counter.

 We danced all over the training hall, hacking, slashing, parrying and cutting almost with a wild abandon. Thousands of years of a brutal culture that had ensured that only the strongest survived to create the next generation had created a race unsurpassed within the bounds of existence. Such a cultural legacy ensured that despite her nature as an ex-priestess she was capable of not only holding her own against a daedra-infused vampire, but was almost nearly winning. The clashing of metal on metal soon grew in strength until it was almost painful on the senses but we continued on unabated.

 “I will not let you push me away!” My words were little more than hisses as my remaining teeth began their tapering into spikes of bone. The madness in her expression was still there but there was the tiniest waver in her arms, a chink in her mental and emotional armour. “I would rather die than see you come to harm.”

 She had not spoken a word in common since throwing the daggers, her curses and ranting sentences continuing without pause. By now I had also begun to noticed tears streaming down her cheeks, and hers eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot around her intense yellow irises.

 “ _Lu'oh kuuv dos morfeth uns'aa khaless dos_!” She spun neatly but as she swung her sword I caught the blade right on its back with my own, twisting sharply with a speed that only a vampire could have performed. One second she was spiralling out with a blow aimed to slide between my ribs, and then the next her long sword was left imbedded and quivering in the ceiling.

 Twirling around she performed a graceful ballet, ripping the sword from where the stones entrapped it and cutting down as though she was going to cut me the same was I had with Kurdan. In a second she had leapt and sliced downwards before her sword came to a sudden and abrupt stop.

 Gloves shredded, blackened talons of bone peeling apart my fingertips I had caught the descending blade in the palm of a hand rendered stronger than the steel blade that it caught. There was no blood, only the solid impact jarring my entire body as it stopped dead.

 My other hand lashed out, not in rage but in a cold calculating strike that transcended all emotions. Her other hand was suddenly gripped around the wrist, pulling her closer to me while I pushing her towards the wall. We were that close I could feel her breaths on my face and see the hot, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and splattering the front of her chainmail.

 The sight of the tears stopped the vampire as surely as the blade that was held in a transformed hand. Forcing the beast into the recesses of my soul I felt the customary tingling through my aching jaw and cheeks and my fingers reshaping into those of a man rather than daedra. Standing there with a trembling sword held aloft in one hand, a strangely delicate wrist in the other, I could do nothing but stare into her eyes as she began releasing all her pent-up emotions. Pressed against the wall, she could do nothing more than cast her eyes down and away from my own and weep.

 “You trust me because when I say that I will not let anything happen to you I mean it.” I began, and I felt her body relax and her breathing suddenly transform in deep wracking breaths. The sword slipped out of her hand and I released it as well from a hand suddenly feeling numb from the impact, hearing the blade clatter against the tiled floor.

 Suddenly free I reached out with my tingling hand, pressing it against the side of her face and feeling the uncomfortable heat emanating from her flesh as she looked up into my eyes. There was a moment as I struggled to talk, feeling the words worming into my mind and yet struggling to bring myself to say them out loud.

 “I love you Viconia,” I whispered, admitting it not only to her but to myself with the simple words. In the months of travelling and the time spent together I knew that I had been holding back for not only far of losing her but of admitting what I had always believed to be weakness. There was a similar shudder of emotion that flowed through her and her eyes clamped shut in a vain attempt to block the tears.

 “I have never been one to believe in fate,” I began, feeling her body trembling as she shook her head at my words but unable to ignore them completely. “but after everything that has happened I am sure that we were fated to meet.”

 She shook her head even harder, trying to crush the tears away and I could feel her frustration of her emotions fighting against a lifetime of engrained teachings.

 “No.” She whispered. “It cannot be like this. After everything that has happened, I have still lost.”

 My hand remained against her cheek and I felt the increased pressure as she leant against it unconsciously. Bunching up her fists as I let go of her other hand she hit me in the chest but there was no strength behind the punches anymore. Tears were streaming down her face as she heaved in deep breaths, her entire body being rocked by the efforts to rein in her feelings. without thinking I had wrapped my arms around her, feeling her press into me and my armour as she buried her head in my chest.

 “I… I cannot go on any longer.” In between sobs she spluttered the words out onto my breastplate. “I cast my white flag before you. You have... You have defeated me.”

 My grip around her shoulders tightened as I tried the best I could to comfort her, feeling her shift in my embrace. Curling up and clenching her fists under her chin she pushed into my chest with surprising force. Months, if not years of pent up emotions flooded out of her, leaving her suddenly go limb and almost fall if not for my embrace. Her entire body was shaking with the effort and emotions that had been eating away at her. Now that it was being released, all her mental defences were now breaking down in succession until there was no resistance left at all.

 “I… I don't know what it is about you, but I have opened up completely. I have let you inside with such honest and candour, and I am not used to that.”

 We had slumped to our knees as she curled up even more into a protective ball. One arm was wrapped tightly around her, the other gently brushed against her flowing white hair in an awkward display of affection. Unused to showing any form of emotion myself I pulled away slightly, providing just enough space so we could look each other in the eyes. “Well, you better get used to it.”

 “ _Khaless zhah aphyon_.” She said before translating the words into common. “Trust is death. I have been betrayed again and _again_ and yet I began to trust you. You were right; the first story was the truth.”

 I felt her fingers reach up and mimic the movement of my fingers over her skin, and I felt the strange surge of connection where her skin made contact with mine. The feeling of warmth made me somewhat light headed and I ridiculously considered that this could possibly be nothing more than a dream from suffering a head injury during the fight.

 “I have begun to feel that I need you and this enthrals and enrages me all at once.” A tortured smile creased her face, one that contained enough of the smile that I was growing to love so much. “I owe you so much. I doubt that I could ever repay you for what you have done for me. You are a safe harbour in a storm, and for that I thank you.”

 “It’s going to take a lot more than you beating the shit out of me for you to lose me. Hells, it will probably even take more than the end of the world to get rid of me. No matter what happens, I promise I will always be here for you.”

 For a few short moments we stared into each other’s eyes and her voice grew soft and fearful. “Despite everything, I will be with you if you were still to have me. I will not try to push you away again as I no longer have the strength.”

 I smiled as warmly and honestly as I could, my fingers in their shredded gloves tracing patterns down the smooth flesh of her cheek and jaw as I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.


	18. Leyawiin

Leaving the ruins of the basement behind and deciding that we had well and truly overstayed our welcome, Viconia and I moved on from the cesspit that was Bravil. With barely a backwards glance or even bidding any farewells, we acquired our equipment and faded into the streets like wraiths in the afternoon shadows. Neither of us wanted to remain in the stinking city for any longer, and the expressions of anger, annoyance and pity that were in the eyes of the other Fighters only confirmed our decision.

 That night we slept together, curling up under our cloaks and clothing off the side of the road and passing out in each other’s arms. Too tired, cold and emotionally drained; neither of us could do much else but make ourselves comfortable in a mostly dry patch of ground, surrounded by the burbling of the marshland and the croaking of frogs. Using her hood as a pillow Viconia rested with her head on my chest, both of us choosing to sleep fully clothed in our armours. There was something extremely comforting resting with her weight pressed into my side and my arm wrapped around her shoulders.

 I woke with the morning sun as it began spearing through the mangroves, feeling strangely relaxed despite the obvious tightness of my shoulders and neck from sleeping in one position for the entire evening. Viconia continued sleeping for some time after myself, her face calm and peaceful and bereft of the scowls that twisted the flesh. For what felt like hours I simply lay there, smiling to myself and running the tips of my fingers through her hair lightly as so not to disturb her.

 After some time, she rolled lightly, eyes cracking open and while lined with veins there was a much softer light to them that morning. Blinking she looked up and gave me a faint smile, lifting herself up so I could roll and stretch out the creases in my spine from the evening with a series of pops.

 “Well, this is unexpectedly pleasant.” She said, looking over me as I sat up and cracked my neck with my hands.

 “Except for the twinges that was the best sleep I have had in years.” I replied, stretching my again back with another series of pops.

 There was a nervous energy about her as she sat, flexing her hands and looking at me with slight apprehension. With a nod of thanks, she took a hunk of hardtack and one of the waterskins as I handed them over to her.

 “What?” I asked, looking over to her and grinding away at piece of my own hardtack that had a consistency comparable to a wooden shield.

 There was a moment of hesitation, eyes looking about before finally settling on her hands. “Yesterday… You said that you loved me.”

 I paused in mid-bite, meeting her gaze and carefully chewing as I thought. “I did.”

 “Why?”

 Rolling the thoughts through my mind like I would roll stones in the palm of my hand, I thought long and hard. The growing feelings that I had for her since we had first met had been growing stronger with every passing day. While I knew that there was a considerable amount of lust as a foundation it wasn’t just a physical attraction. I would do anything for her, and I also knew that there would be nothing in my power that I would not undertake to ensure that she remained safe. Even for something as simple as a smile I would throw myself into the depths of Oblivion unarmed.

 “Because I care about you. Even before what happened with the Mythic Dawn I would have died before letting you come to harm.”

 “You need to work on your effectiveness then.” She said half-jokingly, unconsciously pressing her fingers into her armour where the crossbow bolts had lodged. “but why didn’t you claim me last night?”

 “Claim you?” The confusion only lasted for a moment until the realisation flashed into my mind. My eys widened as I looked at her. “ _Oh_ …”

 With both eyes burning into me she watched me carefully, studying every inch of my expression.

 I felt incredibly nervous under her gaze and my mouth was suddenly dry and not just form the hunk of wood masquerading as bread after being baked far too many times. “Look, I’m not good with women. Never have been and probably never will be. After yesterday I didn’t think that it would have been a good idea to rush things, especially how we have only kissed twice and all that.”

 She leant over, pressing her lips against mine and for a moment we lost ourselves in the feeling. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through her hair as her hand pressed into my jaw. “Thrice now.” She said huskily as she pulled away, the words rising from deep within her chest and almost sounding like a purr.

 “I really do think that I love you.”

 The hunger in her eyes dimmed slightly and she looked at me with slight hints of confusion. “As you keep saying. But, other than the substandard examples I have seen during my time on the surface that word holds no meaning.”

 “And I’m not sure if I can describe it either.” I replied honestly. “The best I think that I’ll be able to do is show you, as I know the Drow don’t have a word for Love.”

 “We do.” The scowl returned with customary force. “ _Ssinssrigg_. But it doesn’t hold the same meaning as what you put into yours. I would use it to describe how I feel about my sword, or my armour, _not_ an individual.”

 “What would you call a lover or partner?”

 _“Mrannd'ssinss_.”

 Rolling the word around my tongue I tried to remember what little she had taught me about her native tongue. “Which means I would call you _mrind'sins_.”

There was darkness in her eyes for a second as I butchered the word. “ _Mrimmd'ssinss_.” She pronounced very carefully. “And don’t. The intent and meaning of those words don’t translate into common the way you are intending. The closest meaning to _Mrannd'ssinss_ that I can comfortably translate is ‘ _male-who’s-life-and-seed-you-possess_ ’. As I possess neither and this is not a relationship within the Underdark then it is inaccurate.”

 “In case you haven’t noticed, on the surface it’s not the words but the meaning and emotion you put into them.” Carefully I rose to my feet, offering her a hand to help her rise. “I take it that we are something more than just travelling companions now?”

 Her laugh was musical. “Not yet we aren’t.” There was a wicked gleam in her eyes as she moved closer and ran her fingers up my breastplate. “You lost your opportunity last night, but who knows what the future holds?”

 “Hopefully a decent bed and a bath that doesn’t have mud mixing through the water.”

 “Shar’s sacred blessings I hope so.” She moved closer and we kissed again, our arms wrapping around each other and I felt the solid thump of our armours coming together.

 “Until then you’ll just have to behave yourself...” The sultry grin of pleasure and amusement creased her expression into one that nearly made my heart miss a beat. “ _Mrannd'ssinss…_ ”

 It was a lengthy journey to Leyawiin in the deep south of Cyrodiil, and every kilometre seemed to increase the temperature and humidity until we were riding in our tunics and daedroth scales. All my metal armour plates had been stuffed into various saddlebags, and I left my minotaur leather cloak and hood wrapped around me only to keep the sun’s burning gaze from turning my skin red and raw. Viconia, despite her the deep ebony colouring of her skin had similar issues as the sun beat down mercilessly and complained bitterly about the sun’s savage bite. After two days the evening were broken with storms that had begun regularly every day. These storms and the rain would leave us drenched at each tavern or coaching inn we stayed the night at but at least managed to go some way at washing away the filth of Bravil from our flesh and belongings.

 No longer did we stay in separate rooms or sleeping on the bed and floor respectively. Each night we retired to our room resulted in sleeping in each other’s arms and by the third morning we rose exhausted after having very little sleep the night before. There had been times that I was thankful for my vampiric curse, and it was on that morning that I rose sore and bearing more than just a handful of bite marks and scratches that I was grateful for the increased stamina. Like a river bursting its banks, our emotions and mutual lust had finally found a release and it was closer to midday when the two of us managed to resaddle our mounts and continue with our journey. What began as soft and gentle caresses had quickly changed to a rough and passionate hunger that we satisfied with each other’s flesh, leaving both of us with a handful of sore muscles, various aches and some difficulty walking for both of us.

 Each night afterwards, and on one occasion while we stopped for lunch we relieved all the sexual tension that had been building for the past four months. Viconia especially was positively glowing as we finally came within sight of the towered walls of Leyawiin

 Built into the outcroppings of stone and foothills at the mouth and estuaries of the lower Niben; Leyawiin was a majestic sight. As the stronghold that not only provided a safe port for the ships and fleets in the southern Empire, but also secured the only sea trading routes to the Imperial city it was heavily fortified. Unlike Bravil there was no decay or lingering sense of long lost glories but the feeling of progress and security. Thousands of acres around the city, almost for as far as the eye could see had been cleared of mangroves and rainforests and instead turned into enormous collections of rice paddies. Tiered into every rising slope and supplied from an enormous series of aqueducts from as far away as the rivers and streams in the mountain ranges separating Elswyr and Cyrodiil to the west.

 Trapped in between two provinces with less than a week’s travel separating them, the city had to be strong not just for the Empire’s interests but also for its very survival. Well experienced fighting against Khajiit raiders and Argonian insurgents, the militia was almost a private army comparable to the legions, but Leyawiin had more than just guards to protect her.

 Viconia and I rode steadily down the highway towards the towering walls of the city. Gently swaying in the saddle as our horses trotted along, it was considerably more pleasant now that we found ourselves surrounded by the sea of rice paddies and the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds. A cool breeze flowed from the south and Topal Bay, allowing the dozens of enormous ships sailing in the wide river mouth to make their way steadily towards the north and the Imperial City. Some of the gigantic vessels slid south, relying on a complex series of sails that allowed them to crawl bow first into the wind and for the moment Viconia and I were content in taking in our new surroundings.

 Viconia was hooded, covering her skin from the light of the sun as best she could but already I could tell that there was a newer, healthier shine from the days of travel. I was wrapped slightly in my own hood and cloak, leaving little more than my forearms out as they began to go a burned pink from the hours of exposure.

 “Do your people have a rite of Passage into adulthood?” she asked as we travelled along the highway and steered our mounts through the increasing press of travellers and merchants. “I'm curious.”

 I glanced over to her, while keeping an eye on the dozens of people making their way throughout the area. For over a kilometre around the city the ground was solid and sparsely constructed. Unlike the other cities in the Empire, Leyawiin was constantly on a war-footing and only the bare minimum buildings were allowed outside its walls. “Nothing formal really. Some cultures have a few different traditions but even then, it differs from place to place.”

 The word of a recent attack on the city had reached us on the second night on the road south and around us there was the general bustle of military might that followed all engagements. Another Oblivion gate had opened but this time it had been a resounding victory against the Deedra. The details had been sparse, but the word had been that the battle had been over in less than two hours with only a few dozen casualties. “I know that a few of the Nords usually go on some hunt with the elders, and some of the Dumner tribes in northern Morrowind have a trial where they have to enter the Ashlands and survive for a period of days.”

 Her grin was savage, and I knew that she was enjoying herself even if somewhat at my expense. “The Drow have a formal ritual, although it does vary from place to place. What we call _'the Blooding_ ' must be performed by both sexes upon reaching the age of maturity.”

 “It sounds as suitably dark and violent as what I could expect from the Drow.” I chucked lightly. “What exactly is it?”

 “It’s quite simple.” She replied, closing her eyes and skin tingling as the wind from outside the small cave we were resting flowed across her naked body. “The young must hunt down and kill an intelligent being. Usually one of the adventurers cloth.”

 “So one such as myself? That definitely sounds right for a warrior race.”

 “You would've made a fitting trophy,” It was her time to laugh quietly, and looked at me with her wolf-yellow eyes. “if for a simple youngling barely reaching puberty. My house insisted for the head of a holy warrior, and so I brought my Matron the head of a Akhulging Sigorduba - a Priest of some Cult in a neighbouring city.”

 The sudden tenseness that ran through her body was detectable even from the distance between us. Carefully I steered my horse around a wagon filled with bags containing what appeared to be a significant amount of amber. “What happened?”

 “He took me for a beggar seeking guidance. He was far more learned than what I would've guessed, as he quickly managed to see through my deception. It still didn't stop me from using his own holy mace to cave in his skull.”

 “Your Mother must have been pleased.”

 There was an audible sigh and she looked around momentarily as we moved closer to an enormous building a few hundred metres from the walls. Over a kilometre away we could both see the broken spears of obsidian where an Oblivion gate had once stood only days previously. “It brought me respect in a society ruled by cruelty and ambition. These acts please Lloth.”

 “Pleasing the Spider Queen was out of ethos and on mantra, girding ourselves to conquer other races.” She continued, even as we both looked up over the structure. It was a combination of fortress and cathedral, reaching into the sky with a spire of locally hewn masonry and surrounded by a two-story wall topped with crenulations. Unlike the other buildings outside of the city this enormous castle-monastery was somewhat new, as the walls were still mostly free of creepers and moss despite the humid conditions. “The Drow wish to rule, as do the Duergar, the Kuo-toa and even the Illithids, but our feet are clay. We distrust ourselves almost more than other races, and where I once thought of this as strength I now know that it is nothing more than weakness.”

 The haunting call of a battle horn sounded, and the highway cleared with an indecent haste. Wagons and carts were rolled over to the edges, those on foot stepping into the gutters and softer soil bordering the well-worn cobblestones. Within seconds the sounds of hooves began to reverberate through the air, thudding their way into our bellies. Viconia and I too steered our horses to the sides and out of the way as the ten-metre-wide road was left clear for the approaching group of riders exiting the city.

 There was over forty of them, riding in a column four wide and at least ten long and cut a sight that I had never seen outside of wood carvings or in my imagination. Resplendent in their burnished steel plates and chainmail polished to an absolute shine, the entire group were fully plated for war. From their sallet and great helms, to their plate mailed toes they were dressed in dozens of kilograms of perfectly forged armour, white surcoats and pennants fluttering in the breeze. Even their horses; a collection of massive thoroughbreds with the smallest being no less than sixteen hands high were also heavily armoured in layers of leather and plate barding. These knights were the men and mer who had lowered lances and charged into the throat of oblivion, annihilating the daedra and crushing them under steel-shod hooves. Each knight and his steed were over a tonne of armour and flesh; capable of riding through a storm of arrows and smash entire formations to splinters with sword, lance, mace and hammer.

 As they cantered through the press they barely provided a sideways glance to those suddenly bowing or saluting their respect to the armoured knights. I watched, tapping my fist against my chest as the troop passed by us, towering over Viconia and I in their armoured might. A handful turned and looked at us as they rode onto the massive structure that was their fortress-monastery, appearing to have as much emotion as dwemer automatons than flesh-and blood beings in their faceless helms. One of the riders snapped his visor open to allow him to see better than through the series of pinholes and the horizontal slit in the visor. White faced and sweating in the layers of armour, the Imperial grinned at the two of us and briefly raised his lance to return my salute.

 All of them were sporting obvious signs of battle. Shields had been buckled or rent, armour sporting new dents and metallic gashes where blades and other weapons had tried and failed to breach the impressive plate. Tabards and surcoats were scorched or still held the fading bloodstains of their foes that failed to hide the horse and sword iconography of their order. These men were the Knights of the White Stallion; one of the few Knightly Orders based within Cyrodiil itself.

 As they rode their massive warhorses through the opened gates of their monastery Viconia and I turned and steered our horses back into the road as the other travellers were already doing. Viconia especially seemed almost struck dumb by the sight of the Knights, looking back towards their fortress in an attempt to catch a further glimpse.

 “By Shar, I never imagined that such beings could exist!” There was a strangely dreamy quality to her gaze as she thought of what she had witnessed. “And such beasts! Those minotaurs we killed could not have been any more than half their weight!”

 “I never thought that I would see a Knight in the flesh.” I couldn’t help but shudder slightly. The size of the armoured warriors and their horses left me feeling as though I was riding nothing more than a child’s rocking horse instead of our pack animals. “Most of the Knightly orders are far away in Hammerfell and High Rock.”

 “They look effective.” She admitted as we rode closer to the city. The closer we got to the walls and the broken remains of the Oblivion Portal the more I began to notice the way that the ground had been churned up.

 “There’s no doubt about that.” With an arm I gestured to the soil around the walls before the portal and the road, pointing out what I could see with my forester’s experience. “They met the daedra coming out of the portal head on.”

 The ground was churned into a mire of clods of earth and mud created from daedra blood. It almost appeared as though a Sheogorath worshipper had tried his hand ploughing a field and I could see the trailing lines where two or three ranks of mounted soldiers had charged the portal across an area just over a hundred metres wide. From the size of the warhorses we had just witnessed, I quickly guessed that there would have been two or three hundred Knights in the charge that tore the ground into a muddy wound and crushed a daedric assault into paste. The stories of how only a dozen or so had lost their lives in the attack no longer seemed to be wishful thinking or propaganda. If anything, it had been an overestimation of the number who had died.

 Despite the heat and humidity of southern Cyrodiil, Leyawiin was pleasant and relaxing, especially after our brief time within Bravil. The local wore full length dresses and various other loose fitting, comfortable garments to deal with the stifling humidity and year-round temperatures. After years in northern Vvardenfell the heat left me sweating almost constantly that replacing my clothing with cooler cloth of a much thinner weave only went somewhat towards making it comfortable.

 Viconia however seemed to revel in the heat and the local culture. While she admitted to feeling at home in the violent debauchery and crime-rife city of Bravil there was something about the way the locals that attracted her. Bravil may have been incredibly like Menzoberranzan but with worse plumbing and sewage; but Leyawiin was a city deeply influenced by its mix of cultures. Traditionally Nibenese, it had somehow managed to resist a significant portion of the external influences to remain one of the last true regions where the culture could be experienced. While primarily a mix of Argonian and Khajiit, the Nibenese shone through. Easily one in every three of the locals were Argonians, several Khajiit spotted with every turn of the head but the influences of the Empire and the locals were obvious.

 For the first few days there was little to do but wander the streets and see the sights. The Fighters Guild here was idle, but not through laziness or ill-discipline such as those in Skingrad. There were no contracts to be had as the only organised source of competition for the Guild within Cyrodiil was based within the southern city. The Blackwood company; founded by mercenary remnants after the Arnesian war, and Beastfolk deserters from the Legion they had muscled in on the local area. By undercutting the local guild and taking contracts that no self-respecting guildsman would even consider, the Blackwood Company had quickly grown in size and strength. Within a decade they had ended up outnumbering the two dozen Fighters with over a cohort’s worth of sell-swords that were little better than thugs and bandits. The tensions between the two groups of mercenaries had been growing ever since the Company was formed, and brawls and scuffles in the streets and various taverns were not unheard of.

 On the second night we had arrived I found myself and Viconia stuck between a group of guildsmen and locals in a tavern, using a combination of our reputations and presences to break up what was going to be a brawl if it continued for any longer. The members of the guild in Leyawiin were strong, courageous and highly skilled ,but unfortunately the lack of regular paying jobs or any form of action have left them bored and making their own fun. The number of stories we heard of punch ups between the guild members and locals, guards and members of the Blackwood Company were almost without number. It was almost a tradition or habit by now for the local guildsmen to have one of their number in jail a couple of times each week.

 With no contracts to be had and a new dynamic between the Viconia and I, we simply explored the city. For the first two days we did little more than introduce ourselves to the local guild before exploring the market places and plazas. After my plunge into the ruins of Nornalhorst our wealth had only increased once more, leaving us yet again with two pouches each filled with gemstones and other valuables.

 Early in the morning on the second day Viconia and I were making our way through the city’s markets, looking over the collections of trinkets, oddities and goods from throughout the bounds of the Empire. Although there was no affectionate touching or holding of hands between the two of us, anyone watching could see that there was something between us. Whether it was a soft caress of a shoulder or a briefest touch to gain each other’s attentions, we were infinitely more relaxed and comfortable in each other’s presences compared to the weeks and months previously.

 Despite the confirmed threat of Oblivion hanging over the city there was no fear like what had infected Anvil. The guard was strong, well experienced and highly trained and with the incredible example of the Order of the White Stallion’s charge into the portal on everyone’s lips it was as though nothing untoward was affecting the Empire. Trade continued to flourish, dozens of peddlers and merchants were out in force on every street corner and filling the trading squares with the array of goods. Almost anything could be bought here in a smaller copy of what could be found in the Imperial City but with a considerable Nibenese streak. Crafts made from amber, carved figurines in wood and ivory, spices and an incredible array of chocolates and other sugared foodstuffs were in the hundreds. With a region so agriculturally diverse and rich it was almost as though we had stepped into a different world. The rich bounty of the jungles, rainforests and marshes ensured that even the beggars were able to dress in silks and the food was either incredibly sweet and overwhelmingly spicy.

 From throughout the Empire traders stopped at the city on the way north and the teeming multitudes on City Isle. Jewellery from Summerset Isle, Nordic swords, Orcish armour, and rare textiles from Morrowind could be found here, and it wasn’t long before Viconia found several more pieces of jewellery to add to her small collection.

 Making our way through the markets I watched as Viconia flitted from stall to stall, finding herself the centre of attention not only from the men but also from the women. She was dressed in a flowing silken dress that if it showed any more skin it would have created a minor scandal. Even with the underdressed state of the locals and the way that they dressed in silks and toga, she turned heads wherever she went. But what was surprising especially to Viconia was the way that many of the local women also approached her. The local Nibenese population appeared to be either tattooed or sporting several piercings or both, showing their cultural legacies through modifying their flesh and bodies. Some of the more fervent in their practices even sported considerable amounts of scarification, etching their family histories on their flesh with acids or sharpened blades. Viconia’s natural beauty was enough to turn heads, but the mapped history of pain and suffering was becoming ever more prominent every day. Appearing as greyed lines across her ebony flesh, the sheer amount of scarring was becoming even more visible as her skin continued to darken ever further from the sun’s kiss. It did not take long before some of the more courageous of the locals drew closer to her to ask about the patterns and how she had come about them.

 The looks of horror at the truth in her words seemed to keep Viconia amused when she told portions of her tales, but the increase in her confidence was startling. I had not noticed the ways that she had kept her flesh hidden over the months previous; thinking that it was simply because the sun burned her far more than those of the surface world. The fact that she had been incredibly self-conscious about the scarring and imperfections and chosen to hide from the world was only noticeable at the sight of the way that she now carried herself. Although I was mentally kicking myself for not noticing earlier, I couldn’t help but grin at the sight of the pair of women fawning over Viconia. They were noblewomen by the purple silks of their dresses and they followed her like a shadow for several minutes while convincing her that the scarring only made her even more attractive.

 Between the two noblewomen and two clothing vendors that they dragged her to, they managed to distract her as they fawned over her. The highborn women were utterly set on finding something more suitable than the dress she was currently wearing, delving through the piles of clothes with an excitable energy that only left Viconia looking confused in the midst of it all. Her face was alight with a rare kind of pleasure as the two vendors began competing against each other by pulling out finer and finer dresses that were so expensive that even the two nobles shrank back. Viconia ate up the attention, running her fingers through the finery that only the two of us knew that we could afford.

 “Greetings good sir.” One of the nearby vendors called out. “You look like someone who could benefit from my stall.”

 Turning and looking over the middle aged orc standing proudly before his wares, I saw how his cart was almost groaning under the weight of the weapons that were arrayed upon it. Further behind him at the corner of a nearby alley stood his shop; a simple smithy that seemed unsuited for the skill and experience of the Orc blacksmith.

 “What have you got for me?” I replied, wandering over to him as he beamed and stepped backwards to his cart.

 “Whatever you need.” There was a laugh from the greenskin. Like the rest of his kind he was monstrously large, chest and shoulders half as wide again than mine and consisting almost entirely of muscle. Flecks of white were beginning to win their battle against the last of his thinning hair, but the beard that clung to his face like moss was still thick and like steel wire.

 “I’ve got anything you need to remove a problem in your life. Just depends on what your preference is.” There was no doubt that he knew who I was and the looks that he sent to, and received from the other vendors spoke volumes. The others were upset that he had managed to gain the attention of one of the heroes of Kvatch, and he was proud that such a person was looking over his wares.

 Like most of his kind, his craft had been made with an innate gift in the art of forging metal. It was a very closely run tie between Orckind’s ability in creating weapons, and their natural skill in wielding them. Like a lot of people, I believed that their expertise in one increased the other, and this particular Orc’s wares seemed to go a way towards proving it.

 Axes, Maces, warhammers, swords, flails, polearms, daggers and battle picks were arrayed in a carpet of death dealing implements. Each one was forged from various materials and in various designs. Most were obviously Imperial, even if some were made from more than just simple folded steel. I ran my fingers over a dagger carved from what was undeniably smelted dwemer metal and a massive greatsword as long as I was tall, forged from the dull green of orichalcum.

 Each piece had been lovingly crafted, forged with the skill and might of the orc standing beside me as I picked a few of the weapons up in turn, feeling their balance and weight and marvelling at both. Nearly seven kilograms of solid beaten metal ensured that it was a weapon designed for only the strongest of swordmen and was sturdy enough to bash its way through armour with its weight alone. Knowing full well that it had been made for one of his own kind I dragged the enormous greatsword from the cart, feeling his amused eyes resting on me as I gave it a few experimental twirls.

 The amusement of the orc and several of the other witnessed died and was replaced with a combination of awe and respect as I wielded the blade effortlessly and left it humming after cutting through the air. So focussed on the blade they all had failed to noticed how my bunched arms had grown slightly in size and my face tightened in more than just concentration. The sword was perfectly balanced but with a blade twice as long as the Light of Dawn, and nearly four times as long as Sunchild it was not something I would go to battle with.

 “That’s a hell of a blade.” I said simply, handing the sword to the bemused orc as he laughed at the sight of me wielding such a weapon with apparent ease.

 “You’re bloody strong for an Imperial.” He said half-jokingly, giving me a quick glance as the building commotion behind me snagged his attention. “Ugh… What in Zenithar’s name is going on now?”

 I turned, looking over crowds in the marketplace scattering aside from a large group of armoured warriors marching through the plaza. There was nearly a dozen of them, all fully armoured and carrying an array of weapons clasped to their belts and shoulders. Every single one of them were clad in blackened suits of armour; some full plated suits that would not have looked out of place on a knight, and others in various boiled leathers and chainmail that jingled with every step.

 “Ah shit.” The orc smith muttered behind me under his breath. “Here we go again.”

 As the armoured group marched with distinctive purpose towards us the crowds scattered in their wake. Impressive and intimidating in their armour the Blackwood Company members cleared a path, knocking people aside indiscriminately without any form of restraint. A crash of pottery echoed through the marketplace as a trader’s cart was overturned and screams and shouts of pain were clearly audible over the press.

 Jaw clenching and teeth grinding in my head I watched as one of the company shouldered his way through a young family struggling to herd their children out of the path of the armoured warriors. Towering over them the Altmer sellsword didn’t even bother slowing, punching the father in the face and kicking his daughter in the stomach with a permanently ingrained sneer on his elven features. The child’s mother was left screaming and trying desperately to calm her child who looked barely over ten years of age while her husband was left sprawled out on the cobblestones.

 One of the armoured company members leading the group was visibly shorter than the others, who overall seemed to consist mostly of Khajiit and Argonians. The Wood Elf leading the group was only just coming up to my shoulders and that was only because of the heavy boots he wore.

 “That’s them.” He said simply, gesturing to Viconia and I as the rest of the people in the marketplace found pressing business elsewhere. All of the traders were trying to move their laden carts and wagons and the orc smith had made a hasty retreat into his store where the sounds of locks being snapped shut were clearly audible.

 The sound of the voice brought immediate recognition and I laughed loudly at the Bosmer dressed in a suit of Blackwood Company armour. “Maglir! You turd sucking arsehole! Is this where you ended up?!”

 He paled visibly, shrinking in statue as it had appeared that he had his hopes resting on being unrecognisable in his new armour and with his helm hiding his face. Despite the relative newness of the Blackwood armour, it still somehow managed to appear to be at least two sizes too large for him. Completely ignoring me, the rest of the party stepped forward until the smaller Bosmer was lost in the middle of a wall of blackened, burnished metal.

 An Argonian with the build of a salt water crocodile stepped forward, bristling in his own gleaming black plate. He was easily twenty kilograms heavier than me even without his armour and I suddenly found myself wishing that Viconia and I had worn our own for our walk in the city. We only had our swords clasped to our belts and nothing more than clothes on our backs, against seven fully armoured and armed Blackwood mercenaries and the cowering Maglir.

 “You’re not welcome here, _Hero_.” The Argonian hissed, drawing the words out menacingly. I couldn’t help but think of the snake I had seen in the market the day previously as the Khajiit drew it from a basket with a flute. The short frills that trembled on the lizard’s neck and head were extremely familiar.

 “There are two of us here you know.” Viconia said with a cold expression and without the slightest hint of concern in her voice.

 “You don’t count bitch.”

 The glare that she gave the muscled Khajiit standing beside the Argonian would’ve killed a lesser creature and she folded her arms neatly. The expression mightn’t have changed but I could feel the simmering fury burning deep within her. Like the rest of the fighters apart from Maglir, the Khajiit looked large enough to punch his way through a pine door and there was no fear from any of them. Not that any of them should have been feeling any fear in the situation. Three Khajiit, two Argonians, a towering brute of a Nord with a massive beard and scarred face, a foul looking Dunmer and the tall Altmer all dressed in their armours and weaponry. All of them against a pair of unarmoured individuals carrying nothing more than their swords. Against anyone else it would have been an impossible situation but I could already feel the immense strength and speed of the vampire threading its way through my muscles.

 “Leyawiin doesn’t need you, nor does it want you.” The Argonian continued, ignoring the way Viconia and I stood facing them down. “The Fighters guild doesn’t need any more scum filling its ranks.”

 Gesturing to the group of them I laughed in his face. “Judging by the company you keep, it looks like you have the monopoly on scum.”

 There was long drawn out hiss from the lizard, like a pot coming to boil and I didn’t even bother keeping the smirk off my face.

 “Well then, looks like we’re just going to have to teach you a lesson.” Stepping forward from the group the Dunmer swaggered in Viconia’s direction, looking over her with his thoughts plain on his face. “We’ll take your woman and whatever else you’re carrying. You can have her back once we’ve finished taking turns.”

 I suppressed the laugh that I had at the paling expression on Viconia’s face. Mistaking it for fear, the Dumner moved even closer, the uncontrollable lust evident in his eyes as he grabbed for her wrist and shoulder. The Argonian watched me intently, seeing how I stood totally unconcerned at the unfolding events and realising with a start that something was wrong when I could no longer hold back my grin.

 The word of command to the Dumner was cut off even before it exited his mouth as the dark elf suddenly started shrieking and dropped to his knees. As he grabbed Viconia by the wrist she had twisted his arm into a lock, wrenching it with a series of pops and cracks before stepped backwards from the man. Blood spurted from the horrible injury to his wrist; the hand bent right back until the bones had split the flesh and left his palm and fingers pressed flush with the underside of his forearm. Despite the chainmail and netch leather that he wore it had also appeared as though a new joint had grown in his forearm as everything below the injury flopped bonelessly like a dead fish.

 Screaming and clutching at the terrible wound, the Dumner knelt before the now visibly livid Drow and her expression of utter hatred and rage. Digging her fingers into his scalp and grabbing a fistful of hair she punched him right in the face, mashing his nose in a spurt of blood before delivering another four blows that left the dark elf comatose and bleeding into the cobblestones.

 Shaking her fist to remove the stinging impact of the blows and to flick away the unconscious fighter’s blood from her fingers she stepped back, staring at them all as though she was daring them to try something else. Everyone except for myself seemed to have been transformed into statues bearing expressions of disbelief and amazement her reaction and how quickly she had disabled the fighter.

 “No killing.” I said, looking over the group standing before us wearing expressions of soul-consuming rage.

 “You are hardly in the position to be giving orders!” the Argonian roared, pointing at me with a clawed digit.

 “I wasn’t talking to you _snake_.” I gestured to Viconia massaging her knuckles. “I was talking to her.”

 Rolling her eyes at me I saw how she rose herself up onto the balls of her feet, relaxing her body in preparation for fighting. “ _Ula._ Have it your way. They might wish that they were dead after I’m finished.”

 To the utter astonishment of the Blackwood Fighters Viconia and I launched ourselves at the remainder. Not waiting for the group of them to attack we instead took the initiative, charging the armoured group and yet not drawing our own weapons. They had come to force us out of the city, perhaps delivering a beating beforehand as murder was not something that they wanted to hang for. While they were carrying their weapons none of them reached for them even despite their surprise.

 I cracked my knuckles across the face of a snarling Khajiit, feeling flesh separate on a fang even as the furred creature staggered backwards holding its jaw. Dodging a rushed haymaker from the cursing and snarling Argonian I swept his legs out from under him, proving to everyone that without my armour I was a lot faster than any of them could manage. The metallic impact of the lizard slamming hard into the ground was felt through my legs even as I blocked a different attack from the bleeding Khajiit. The catperson was deadly with his attacks, swiping and pawing and kicking with all the strength and agility of a mountain lion. Using his claws to deadly effect he consistently struck at my face in the attempt to disorientate me, as anyone in a fight instinctively sought to protect their sight. He was quickly turning into a fur covered blur of movement, twisting, twirling and darting and all the while trying to sink his claws into my bared flesh.

 Roaring and spitting curses of such force and description that I struggle not to imagine his words, the tall Altmer strode into the fray. Two metres tall and thin in comparison to the other members of the Company he used his size to his advantage; kicking out with his long legs with bone shattering force. As tall and powerful as he was, he had neither the speed or agility as the Khajiit or Argonian who was slowly picking himself up from the ground, but he made up for it in sheer power. Against someone like myself with the increasing speed and strength of the vampire flowing through my limbs it was not going to be anywhere near enough.

 Ducking under a massive forward kick I felt the wind of his armoured leg brush past my face. The kick had enough strength to shatter wood but after missing me it had left him dangerously overbalanced, allowing me to grab him by the ankle and push the leg up and back towards him. With a half-cry of surprise, he teetered precariously as I pushed up until his leg was higher than his shoulder. There was a moment of flailing panic in the tall elf before I took his other leg out from under him, dropping him painfully onto the cobblestones.

 Behind me the sudden bruising impact of a fist into my ribs knocked the wind out of me, and I staggered away with one hand clutching my side as I parried off the following attacks from the Khajiit. Taking full advantage of the opening as I dropped the Altmer, the furred fighter had come in swinging, thankfully putting himself between me and the hissing Argonian who finally got to his feet. Blocking a series of blows from the Khajiit I twisted around, grasping the Argonian by an outstretched wrist before twisting and throwing him headfirst into a cart full of pastries and baked goods.

 The cart overturned, catapulting food in all directions and turning the Blackwood Sergeant’s burnished armour into a riot of flour, sugar and various coloured jams. The increased swearing was not pleasant from my downed foe as he swiped his muzzle free of clinging cakes and icing, hissing with hate and frills and teeth fully bared.

 My minotaur leather boot smashed him back into the mess with a squelch, and I backhanded the Altmer as he too struggled to rise to his feet from where I had dropped him. With the both of them down for the moment I spun, using the short few seconds to deal with the growling Khajiit.

 Punching my fists out, I smashed into his guard with a pair of lightning quick punches and mashed my knuckles into the cat's face with a solid right cross. It staggered back, blinking the sudden wave of tears out of its eyes as I spun on my heel, turning full 360 degrees and using my momentum to smash a wicked backhand right across its jaw. I felt bone break and teeth splinter as I smashed it right off its feet in a furry and dazed mass of pain. It lay there, gurgling through the blood flooding its mouth and I saw with grim satisfaction how its jaw was now very obviously broken and limp. A simple boot to the head put the cat into blessed unconsciousness and left only two dazed attackers left.

 Viconia had already knocked three of her assailants down. The massive Nord fighter was on his knees choking on a crushed windpipe, and the second Argonian was completely out cold and almost completely buried under clothes where it had landed in a market stall. Of the two Khajiit that had rushed her only one was left standing, the other laying on its back cradling a leg that was now very obviously jointed the wrong way. All she had left was a female Khajiit who was giving her an even fight as they both sparred with brutal and effective moves. As for Maglir; he was the only one keeping out of the fight, trying his best to pretend to be invisible and watching in horror as we bashed our way through his comrades.

 The Argonian was the next to go down despite his skill and armour. Surrounded by the shredded remains of the cart’s wares and trying to rise in the slippery remnants he could do little as I stepped closer and knocked him out cold with a kick to the side of the head.

 Suddenly alone, the tall Altmer found himself facing me down by himself and the bloom of fear in his eyes was obvious. Facing a capable adversary alone and more used to bullying his way through to favours he panicked, looking about for help from his unconscious or disabled comrades for a moment before drawing a dagger from his belt.

 In a heartbeat the fight had gone from a brawl to one of deadly seriousness. No longer content on delivering a simple beating even if he had the capability to do so, he was now concerning with inflicting as much pain on me as possible before fleeing from the scene. Lunging out with the gleaming blade he cut the air with short, economical strokes, forcing me to step backwards again and again to put distance between me and the angry elf. The blade cracked through the air with the sound of tearing silk, narrowly missing me each time as I refused to draw my own blade.

 The fight and the sounds of commotion was drawing every guard within several blocks to race through the crowds. Surrounding us were dozens of onlookers watching with a mixture of astonishment and pleasure at the sight of Viconia and I laying the Blackwood company members out cold in the cobblestones. Judging by the heavy handed nature of the fighters and the way that the Altmer especially had simply bashed his way through a family they were not the most popular group in the city. The odd one or two cheers or exclamations of pleasure were obvious where we inflicted some form of physical punishment onto the fighters even as the guard pushed their way through the press and started shouting at us all to desist.

 Waiting until the guard had arrived to lay witness to what was occurring I suddenly changed tactics. Now that the authorities had arrived to bear witness to the group of Blackwood Company members laying on the ground from their failed attempt at assaulting us I knew it was time to finish the fight. Especially with the sight of the fully armoured Altmer swinging a knife at me, I knew that it would be hard to prove anything other than the fact that Viconia and I had been fighting in self-defence. Exceptionally effective self-defence by the sorry states that the seven members had been left in.

 “It’s not as fun fighting someone who can fight back… Is it?” I snarled at the Altmer, goading him on and ignoring the way the nearby guardsmen shouted at us to stop.

 Ducking under a sweeping slash of the blade I laughed at him. “Maybe you should go back to beating up kids. That seems to be the only fair fight you’ll ever have.”

 Roaring, he kicked and slashed his blade at my face, now yearning for nothing more than the sink the edge into my flesh and draw my blood. I felt my face tighten, arms bunching with barely contained strength as I snapped my arm out and caught him by the wrist.

 In his full suit of blackened armour and a full head taller in height the Altmer appeared to be the stronger of the two of us. Even as the guard moved across the opened space surround the brawl there were few who would have believed that I had the advantage. Bunching and rolling under my skin, the enlarged muscles of my right arm became visible to all as my archer’s strength was infused with the power of a vampire. Screaming the elf was forced to his knees as I twisted and clenched my fist until the bones of his wrist were ground together.

 “Drop the blade.” I hissed at him, staring as he whimpered and tried desperately to break the grip that my fingers had on his wrist with his free hand.

 I punched him in the mouth, looking down on him as he knelt before me with his knife hand held out and above his head in my iron grip. There was second of terror in his eyes before it was swallowed up by pain from his busted mouth and crushed hand, but I didn’t see anything else except the sight of the young Nibenese woman comforting her crying daughter in a hug.

 He looked into my eyes as they hardened with anger, not understanding the darkness of the emotion that swirled behind them. Snarling and feeling the tingling of my jaw I crushed his wrist with my growing strength, forcing the hand to pop open and drop the dagger from nerveless fingers.

 To the horror of the kneeling elf and those watching, I snatched the falling dagger out of the air with my free hand, twirling it in my fingers before punching it into the meat of his forearm. His eyes went wide with the dual pain of shattered wrist and the knife buried in his bicep, before screaming and dropping away from me.

 Spitting on my downed adversary I felt the tingling of my jaw and teeth fade away, looking over the sight of the handful of armoured guards edging their way cautiously towards Viconia and I. Eight Blackwood Company fighters were on the ground, either unconscious or suffering debilitating injuries that they would not be walking away from. Viconia and myself were surprisingly unwounded with little more than a collection of bruises and scratches to show for the fight. Maglir had vanished in the confusion, leaving behind a small pile of torso armour where he had shed it to allow himself to disappear into the growing crowd before either the us or the guard got to him.

 A trio of guardsmen moved closer to me, discipline canes and batons held in gloved hands and looking somewhat nervous.

 “Don’t move.” One of them said in his best commanding tone. “You are all under arrest and will have to come with us.”

 He looked about at the carnage strewn about and the moaning and screaming fighters arrayed on the ground and the fact that my sword was still clasped at my hip. It was obvious that he was imagining the massacre that could have occurred if I had used Sunchild rather than my fists and his expression filled with apprehension.

 “ _Please_?” he said quietly enough that only I could hear, and I smiled slightly while raising my hands.

* * *

 

As a result of the public brawl, both the entirety of the Fighters’ guild and the Blackwood Company were placed under house arrest and confined to their respective headquarters in the city. The word of how Viconia and I had laid waste to the group that outnumbered us four to one was spreading through the city like wildfire, stories from eyewitnesses and exaggerated tales soon being repeated in every taphouse, tavern and street corner.

 By order of the Count, the guilds were placed under lockdown, the Blackwood members who we had fought being placed under arrest and expecting prison sentences for starting the brawl. For most of the group they would only see the inside of a jail cell after they had gone through several weeks of intensive care and healing. As for Viconia and I, there was no doubt that we had fought in self-defence with the way how we had been unarmoured and with dozens of witnesses attesting to the way that the Company had started it. Both Viconia and I found it humorous that several ranking members of the guard had private discussions with us, stating that next time we got involved in a brawl in the city they’d appreciate if we could consider not crippling our opponents. There had been some complaints from a few of the vendors about their loss of stock and damage to their property and the way they had to mop up the blood staining the cobblestones. From what I heard though, the cleaning and repair bill had been delivered to the Blackwood Company to the amusement of the members of the Fighter’s Guild.

 The fight and the minor injuries that I had sustained had worn on my nerves turning the desire for blood from a dull murmur in the back of my skull into a yearning need. Through experience I had been growing accustomed to the needs of my body, predicting when the thirst would grow too strong to contain and when the best times were to satisfy it. Between my abilities in the darkness and my minor abilities with restoration I could feed with impunity, only taking lives when I wished it. The disgust with the way that I was now subconsciously considering all within the cities and lands we travelled as cattle to be milked to sustain me ate away at me, but there was no denying my nature.

 During the evenings I sat in the room on the upper floors of the Fighters Guild, feeling the growing thirst even as I tried to suppress it by reading one of the books kept within the Chapterhouse. Poorly written and one of the many stories of previous battles and wars, it was a common enough book in an organisation more interest in coin and fighting. There were rarely any types of novels or fiction that I was coming to enjoy, and there were no writings to further my growing knowledge of the world.

 Viconia lay sleeping quietly in the double bed, dressed in little more than a nightgown due to the stifling heat and humidity. After the fight with the Blackwood Company the day prior and the training we had undertaken through the hours of enforced lockdown she had retired relatively early. Choosing to sleep, it gave me a few hours to lose myself in my own mind, sitting at the tiny table with my feet up and book resting in my lap. With little more than a lantern providing light and the feeling of a breeze through the opened shutters I sat there quietly, listening to the sounds of a city slowly going to sleep for the night.

 The church bells began to peal the midnight hour, the smaller bells almost appearing as tiny chimes to the bronze throated roars of the monsters in the cathedral several blocks away. As the twelfth toll echoed through the streets and quietened houses I rose from my chair, dimming the lantern’s light by closing the shutters slightly. My day clothes had been ruined somewhat in the scuffle with the Blackwood Company, the blood of the high elf having stained down my side after stabbing him with the knife. Within the numerous wardrobes and chests scattered through the guild I had managed to find another couple of sets of clothes my size while my usual set was laundered. Changing from my linen pants I used for sleeping in during our stays in the cities I quickly dressed in a brown-grey set of pants and long sleeved shirt, pulling them tight with a spare belt and slipping on my minotaur leather boots. All of my armour, weapons and equipment were left where they were in their chests and leaning against walls as I felt the embrace of the darkness grip me tight.

 I had learned that although I could change my form at will into a flock of bats or into a cloud of mist, the more I wore or carried, the more exhausted the transformations would leave me afterwards. Dressed in nothing but a shirt, pants and boots I moved like a ghost, sparing a single glance over to Viconia’s lithe body as she lay sleeping before letting the beast loose and slipping out the door.

 There was the usual moment of attraction that the beast had for her, the half-imagined desire to crawl up over the top of her as she lay on her stomach on the linen sheets. There was the taste of her on my tongue and the memories of our activities during the nights over the week previous and knowing exactly how delicious she tasted. The thought of pressing my fangs into her throat and drinking while simultaneously making love to her was almost overwhelming, but with a deep yearning ache in my gut and loins I closed the door silently behind me.

 The shadows beckoned, and I floated down the hall towards the stairs leading to the ground floor. The Guild had been built out of solid stone but even if it had been made from wood my nature ensured that not a sound of my passage would be heard. Draped in shadow, the handful of faintly burning candles weren’t enough to reveal me and I shifted my way through the halls listening to the dozens of snoring and sleeping individuals.

 Statustius, an aggressive looking Imperial with his hair streaked with silver prowled the chapterhouse during the evening hours. Missing a hand from a battle many years ago he was the porter; remaining in service to the Guild as nightwatchman and overall master of the chapterhouse and its finances. While the years were beginning to take their toll on his body in its slow descent to frailty and fat he was one of the few individuals that the local members did not cross. With both eyes kept open as he stalked the guild for thieves and other malcontents he failed to notice me sliding through the shadows even as I moved in front of him. There was a momentary shiver from the aging mercenary as I coiled around him like a snake, feeling the intoxicating pump of his blood through his veins as I reached out and weaved his will into my own. With the merest thought, I sent him off deeper into the building and away from the entrance before evaporating into steam and heading for the door.

 The two city guards outside of the entrance visibly jumped as the doors creaked open and they ended up sharing curses between themselves at the state of the door and its urgent need for repairs. Apparently by their muted conversation, the door opening on its own had been a regular occurrence all evening and neither of them noticed that the evening mists grew thicker around them. With the streets thick with an increasing fog rolling in off the marshes and rice paddies, I was even more undetectable than clad in the shadows. Without a glance at the grumbling guards ensuring the fighters remained in lockdown, I faded into the back alleys of Leyawiin.

 My senses grew and I returned to my shadowed form several blocks away from the chapterhouse, gliding my way through the streets and hiding from the light of the burning lanterns and braziers. I could sense the hundreds of inhabitants sleeping comfortably within their homes, content and dreaming peacefully with only the rare nightmare breaking their thoughts. Both moons was full in the sky, but their light was no threat to revealing me and I crossed open plaza's and the city's squares with impunity.

 The choice on whom to feed was overpowering to the growing mental strength of the beast. With the strange sensation of being trapped before a banquet with the heady smell and sensation of beating hearts around me I struggled not to salivate and kick in the first door I moved past. With such a selection of an entire city before me I could feed on the elderly, the sick, the frail, the young, the strong, the powerful and the just. All could potentially feel the sensation of my fangs cutting into their jugulars but it wasn’t resistance from my humanity that held me back.

 After my battle with the Vampires of Nornalhorst and seeing the sickening lows of depravity that awaited me, I no long sated my thirst on just anyone or anything. Seeing the cannibalistic insanity that awaited me if I fed upon the beasts of the wilds and the sick I was no longer content with feeding on the first individual I came across.

 Slowly I moved around the courtly form of one of the many women of the night, breathing in her scent and feeling her heart start to race as her sixth sense picked up that something was amiss. Feeding on whores and other people who ply their trades during the night had been an easy way of sating the need for blood over the previous months and I enjoyed the thrill of her proximity as I surrounded her. She gasped softly as I gently caressed her mind with my will, running a clawed digit up the softness of her breast where they had been crushed upwards and together by her corset. The wetness of a tongue ran up her throat that left her knees weak before I left her standing in the darkness, edgy and unsure of what had just come over her. Instinctively hastening her way towards the nearest source of light she moved from my reach as I grinned from the depths of the shadows with a maw of fangs, letting her go and knowing that finer meals awaited me.

 Heading in the direction of the towering wall of Leywiin’s castle and stone keep I continued my passage through the darkness. Once again shattering a superstition regarding my curse I crossed the moat without hindrance; proving that the ancient stories of vampires being unable to cross flowing water utterly false. At such an hour the gates were closed, their steel portcullises securely jammed down with their massive weights and keeping the castle secure from outsiders. To a normal mortal thief or assassin the walls were almost unscaleable, lacking nearly any form of handholds or grooves. The walls, five stories in height and their well patrolled battlements ensured that only a member of the Dark Brotherhood would ever consider attempting the climb.

 Blackened claws of ivory tipped every finger and I scaled the walls like an arachnid, effortlessly hauling myself up the sheer edge and sliding over the crenulations like a liquid. In less than a dozen heartbeats I placed my boots on the upper level of the battlements, looking about with my eyes revealing the castle in all its majesty.

 Allowing my limbs to relax and remove the mild burning of exertion of climbing up the wall, I looked over the sight of a fortress rising from the edge of the city. Separated from the rest of the city by a moat ten metres wide and enormous drawbridges, Castle Leyawiin was built almost into the bay itself. To the south lay the port with its jetties and docks filled with trading vessels and their rolled up sails, and the east was the enormous river mouth and estuaries of the lower Niben. Dozens of kilometres across only I would have been able to see the far bank with my vampiric sight, but the clusters of islands could be seen by all.

 Behind me Leyawiin slept peacefully, the flickering beats of hearts appearing as tiny, red flickering blurs to my eyes. I knew that it was not my eyes, but my ears that were detecting the mortals in their homes and beds but somewhere in my tortured mind it left the rolling afterimages on the edges of my sight. Smoke coiled from bakeries and smithies and the handful of chimneys venting the last ashen tastes of the evening meals into the sky shuddering with the rolling thunder of bells. One hour past midnight, the single metallic rumble echoed into the depths of the night, vanishing over the sea of rice paddies and plantations of sugar and tobacco.

 Four times the size of Fort Grief, the Castle was large enough to house an entire legion’s worth of tents in the courtyard with space to spare. It had been built specially to control the access into the Niben as the only sections of the river mouth and bay deep enough for shipping ran within four hundred metres of the outer walls. While towers were placed are regular lengths around the walls there were fat clusters of the rounded structures on the eastern edges. Each were covered with misshapen mounds of canvass where the thick coverings protected the tall arms of siege trebuchets and catapults underneath.

 Every twenty metres a tower jutted from the stonework, blocking the walls and battlements into more easily defendable expanses that any besiegers would have to take one at a time. Thick doors of imported oak and locally hewn timbers from the depths of Blackwood were set into the base of every tower, providing access to the living quarters for the men-at-arms and professional soldiery in their hollowed-out depths. Each tower was a maze of passages and doors, the rooms themselves providing platforms for archers and crossbowmen to hold off attackers through the series of arrow slits and loopholes.

 Sliding along the battlements between the two towers I had climbed between, I felt and heard the sleeping men-at-arms sleeping within. Along the walls the muffled clank of armour and jingle of chainmail announced the handful of soldiers patrolling the walls in their attempts at ensuring that the evening passed without incident. In such a place the number of potential victims to my curse were limited, but were of a much greater stock than the teeming multitudes in the city below me.

 Choosing to climb over the tower instead of attempting to gain entrance through the closed and locked doors built within them, I scrabbled over the tower. Moving around the canvassed catapult built into the roof of the tower that smelt of oiled wood and sinew I peered over the edge of the crenulations, looking at the single figure slowing making its way along it’s lonely vigil. From my position on the roof of the tower I could see little details of the figure, but the growing hunger pains were not going to be denied for much longer. As the armoured form of the night guard turned to stare out over the northern fields I climbed over the wall, dangling for the briefest of moments before dropping four metres and alighting without a sound.

 Without a torch to light her passage, and relying on the handful of braziers strategically placed along the walls with their embers slowly dying of starvation there was no way that the soldier could see me in the shadows. Sliding up behind her I looked over her shoulder at the gleaming lights surrounding the enormous fortress-monastery of the local Knightly Order, feeling her heart beating in her chest and smelling the aroma of oiled metal and old leather. Obviously well into her shift I could feel the fuzziness of her mind from the evenings embrace and the way that she continued blinking away sleep in the early morning chill made itself felt. Well used to similar guard duties during my time in the Legion I knew all too well how the night shifts played on the mind, the lack of noise or movement making it difficult for the mind to remain focussed. Alone on top of a secure castle in one of the most militarised cities in Cyrodiil, surrounded by the snores of dozens of her comrades-in-arms there was no sign of any danger even with a vampire in the shadows at her back.

 Only a few years my junior, hair and features and traces of her femininity hidden beneath layers of chainmail, leather and surcoat there was little to separate her from the dozens, if not hundreds of other soldiers. Only through my enhanced senses could I smell the youth and strength and the purely female scent that radiated from her flesh despite the accoutrements of war.

 A shiver ran through her, the spear and shield strapped to her arm shuddering as the limb trembled. While cooler than the heat of the day it was strangely comfortable nonetheless. Some hidden, dormant instinct within her had alerted her to the danger of my presence and she turned, blinking confusingly and finding herself staring into the reflection of her face in my eyes that were less than arm’s length away.

 The momentary surge of fear that consumed her mind was crushed by my relentless will snaking out of my mind and through her eyes. There was a stiffening of muscles no longer obeying the commands of their owner, a tensing of instincts and muscle memory forged in hundreds of hours of training before everything relaxed and went slack. The grimace of battle-readiness transformed in the smile of one seeing an old childhood friend, and she leaned against the parapet as I stepped towards her.

 Under control of my will, deep and terrible with the darkness of my soul she was devoid of fear and instead other emotions bubbled to the surface. As soft as the breeze I slid fully from the shadows, hearing the scrape of metal rimmed wood as she placed her shield against the crenulations and wrapping our arms around each other. The dangerous charisma of the beast within me was unnaturally strong when unshackled, and while used to looks of desire in the recent weeks they were nothing in comparison to the enticement of the vampire.

 I pulled her close, feeling the jarring metal plates of her armour and the solid layers of chainmail under the belted surcoat even as she sighed quietly in my ear. Jingling and chiming, her nasal helm and attached aventail was pulled from her head before being placed softly on the top of the wall before pulling the leather hood back and letting her hair flow in the evening breeze. Slightly shorter than myself and skin containing the merest hint of Nibenese bronze from some grandparent, she might not have been considered one of the most beautiful in the city but outside of her armour she still would’ve turned heads.

 Hair cropped short in the style of the legion brushed against the side of my tightened jaw as I pulled her close into the embrace, smelling the perfume of her flesh and sensing the increasing beat of her heart from my proximity and touch. Clawed and terrible, a finger traced its way down the curve of her jaw and lines of her throat, drawing out a gasp of pleasure. Shivering at the touch that portrayed the deep seated lust of the vampire’s presence she groaned huskily, running her hands down my back and digging her gloves fingers into my ribs and spine. There was a growing need inside of her that matched my own, despite the difference in their natures and subjects of desire. The groan that she had been holding back rolled from her throat as my lips and tongue began their spiralling journey down her throat.

 As her legs opened instinctively and I pressed between her armoured thighs I gripped her by the waist and the back of the head, running my fingers through her hair as she arched her throat. Tracing the vein with my lips she sighed loudly as I gave her one last, sensual lick before burying my fangs in the flesh of her throat.

 Shuddering and moaning with a mixture of pain, horror and overwhelming pleasure she twitched in my arms, simultaneously pulling away and drawing herself closer to the intrusion of my fangs in her neck. Bubbling around my piercing incisors the blood welled and flowed into my mouth, leaving me to do little more than gulp and swallow the hot coppery fluid. Our eyes mutually rolled into the backs of our heads as we embraced with my feeding, and I continued to swallow as the feeling of warmth spread and strengthened my body.

 Within seconds of drinking my fill a shocked cry of alarm reached my ears and I tore myself away from her throat. Unseen and unheard during my feeding, one of the tower doors had opened as one of the other castle Men-at-arms continued with his own shift. With less than a dozen metres separating between us he had initially believed that he had stumbled across his comrade in the middle of some illicit tryst in the deepening hours of the morning but my appearance put that thought to rest. In a dawning realisation that left him scrabbling for the hilt of the sword at his hip he made a strangulated cry of horror and revulsion, staring into my eyes and instinctively recognising me for what I was.

 With blood streaming from my lips and mouth and covering my chin with gore I released my grip on her and hissed my displeasure at the interruption. The all-consuming rage threatened to take control as the beast dearly wanted to leap upon the terrified guard and bear him down to be drained. Somehow, resisting the urge and retaining the small semblance of humanity within my cursed form I staggered backwards, hearing him shriek and scream on the top of his lungs of the threat within the castle walls. The sound of bells began ringing from within the nearest gatehouses as those within began sounding the alarm without the awareness of the danger, and I twisted between the two of them. I looked between the soldier wielding his drawn longsword in unsteady hands and the young woman I had been feeding on as she slid down the wall holding the wound on her throat. What control I had over her had been completely severed with the discovery of my feeding and she sat heavily onto the stones, staring with mind consuming terror at my darkened form and significance of the pain in her neck.

 I roared on the top of my lungs, breaking into a sprint that only a horse would have been able to match in speed at the guard standing in the tower doorway. Howling so loudly and terribly that everyone within earshot would suffer nightmares for the weeks to come he dropped his sword with a clatter, all his instincts consuming his thoughts and training to leave him dropping to the ground in a huddle. Crying with terror at what he assumed was to be his death he didn’t even lift his head as I leapt over him, my clawed digits sinking into the upper reach of the tower in a single leap.

 In the darkness on top of the tower I wrapped the shadows around me and vanished from sight. Pealing sounds of bells and the questioning shouts of guard commanders echoed up from all around me as the entire castle was awoken from its slumber. The cries of ' _Vampire_ ' mobilised dozen of guards and men-at-arms who exploded into activity, streaming from darkened doorways bearing fresh torches even as they rushed to dress and arm themselves. Within a minute of the first cry breaking the quiet of the evening I had already dived off the walls, leaping into the open space without hesitation. Exploding into mist and reforming with less than a metre from the ground allowed me to land with all the ability and grace of a Khajiit acrobat.

 Speeding through the darkness I struggled not to feel terror of my own threatening to consume my soul. Animalistic and feral, the vampire yearned to shed death but was also fearful like a fox being pursued by hunters. Cursing myself for my arrogance and stupidity of feeding in such a dangerous location I swore constantly, fearful for being recognised while somehow retaining a confidence that while transformed I was more beast than a man. Very little of my humanity remained while the vampire wore my flesh as its own and the fact that I could survive sunlight would confound any potential accusers.

 Choosing to clamber up the sides of the Guild’s chapterhouse rather than braving the front door with the growing wave of unrest and alarm spreading through the city I made my way up the three stories with far greater ease than the sheer castle walls. By little more than my own mentally formed maps of the interior and my intimate knowledge of Viconia’s unique heartbeat I slid inside our shared room, peeling out of the embrace of the shadows and closing one of the windows behind me.

 The slightest hint of a click announced the closing of the window’s latch barely reached past my ears, and I felt the rough wood grain pressing into my forehead as I breathed heavily and willing my heart to stop racing. Adrenaline surged through my body, rippling it with its embrace while the might of the vampire slowly slid into the recesses of my mind. Idly I licked at the blood that still stained my lips and chin, feeling the guilty surge of pleasure at the taste on my tongue.

 The presence in the darkness shifted slightly and I whirled around purely on instinct, all nerves wired and twitching with the anxiety and fear of being caught. I had indeed been caught, but not by some random member of the guild or a stray guard but by Viconia.

 She stood in the shadows, the darkness of the room absolute with the closed shutters and the dead candles and lantern. Without my vampiric sight she would have been invisible, her ebony skin merging her form with almost the same effectiveness as I did with becoming one with the shadows.

 Like my own vampiric sight, she could see into the depths with greater ability than a Khajiit. Likening it to the magical powers of Nighteye and other enchantments; any form of ambient light was amplified in such a way that the interior of a castle could be revealed to her with a single dim candle. In the pitch blackness of the world’s depths where there was no ambient light, she could also utilise an ability that allowed her to see the heat of her surroundings. This form of vision seemed to reflect the heat she could see as burning lights in her eyes, leaving them glowing red and giving her an unnatural, daedric appearance in the gloom.

 The hints of smouldering coals in the darkness narrowed as she looked over my appearance in front of the window, moving forward until there was barely any space between us. There was a flicker of fear from her as she beheld my changed appearance as I forced the last of the beast into the depths of my soul, the last of my transformed visage shifting away, skin and muscled relaxing as my pointed incisors slid back to their original positions in my jaw.

 There was concern on her high bones features, looking over me and tilted her head at the muffled sound of bells spreading through the streets as the alarm spread. With her proximity I felt a lump catch in my throat, realising that under the thin layers of the gown that she had hurriedly thrown around her shoulders she wore nothing else.

 “I’m guessing that that is because of you?” She asked softly, nodding in the direction of the window and the sounds shattering the silence of the evening. One of her hands floated through the air, caressing my cheek briefly before the sensation of moisture and my instinctive recoil away from her touch separated us.

 A strange expression filled her eyes as she felt the sticky, drying blood that still covered my chin and had dribbled down from the corners of my mouth. She carefully rubbed the dark wet patch on her hand, swirling part of it between forefinger and thumb while looking up at me as I turned to wipe the congealing mess onto the back of my sleeve.

 “It’s alright.” She whispered into my ear and rested a hand onto my shoulder. “I’ve seen you with a lot more blood on you that that.”

 With a corner of her dressing gown she wiped away at the last remnants of blood, moving herself closer to me as she did so. “What happened?”

 I sighed and licked the last few congealing drops off my lips, shuddering with the taste. “I got caught feeding.” Was all I could bring myself to say.

 “Did they recognise you?” there was concern in her voice as she asked the most pressing of questions, and all I could do was shake my head slowly.

 “You barely recognise me when I am changed.” I stepped around her and more into the centre of the room, feeling her follow me close. “I don’t think that anyone will know that it was me, but now everyone will now that there is a Vampire in Leyawiin.”

 The soft sound of her bare feet padding on the floorboards reached my ears and she moved closer and wrapped an arm around my shoulders before drawing me down for a kiss. I felt the tingle of desire rush between us, her tongue hungrily entering my mouth and seeking out the hints of blood that it still contained. My own hands ran down her sides, grasping her by the hips and pulling her closer.

 “They will look, but they will not find you _Mrannd'ssinss_.” She whispered as we broke apart from the kiss and dragged me onto the bed.  

 


	19. Repentance and Honour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Knights of the White Stallion in my story are based of an old mod that I used to have pre-2010. I can't for the life of me find it anywhere as I have gone through three computers since then but the lodge and the way I describe the Order is based off that mod. Also, the Knight Commander is a character from that Mod as are some characters that will appear within chapters of Part 2 so all rights and kudos to their original creators.

With the guild remaining locked down and its members under house arrest there was even less than normal to do. Viconia and I found ourselves spending a significant portion of our time in our room, whittling away the hours in the pursuit of pleasure and companionship. For two full days we rarely ventured forth from our room, leaving only the satiate our hunger for more than just each other. Eventually we did join the rest of the members of the guild as the house arrest was slowly beginning to fray tempers and eliciting boredom in all.

 For some of the members they simply began the arduous process of reducing the guild’s supplies of food and alcohol. As such, it wasn’t uncommon for a significant number of the members to be in various stages of inebriation or severely hungover each day. Others gambled, practiced hobbies and crafts such as reading and wood carving, but for most they got increasingly involved in training and competitions of skill.

 By the morning of the third day Viconia and I had joined the rest of the guild in the training area within the basement. An enormous expanse carved from the ground and leaving a space two stories high, it allowed spectators to watch from the comfort of the ground floor. As those on the basement level trained, sparred, fought, wrestled and competed against one another, a large number of other guildsmen and a handful of visitors allowed through the city guards at the doors watched with increasing interest.

 It wasn’t long before the friendly competitions turned into something more serious. The competitive streak that every member of the guild had was as wide as Topal Bay, and coins and wagers were made with considerable frequency. Nearly every member of the guild competed against the others in whatever skill they specialised in, and Viconia and I were competing or being challenged by a number of the members.

 Viconia won the contest with blades, managing to disarm and defeat every member one by one, including myself. The local giant; a towering orc by the name of Dubok gro-Shagk easily won the wrestling competitions by a considerable margin. Without calling upon my vampiric strength there was no way that I was going to be able to win against such a creature. His biceps were almost larger than my torso and overall he weighed double what I did, easily crushing his opponents one after the other and even four at a time when things became a bit too rowdy.

 It was when the archery targets were dragged out that I finally found myself in a competition that I had a better chance at winning. The only downside was that out of all of the members of the Guild, there was two members who were giving me a considerable run for my money.

 A soft spoken wood elf by the name of Brodas and a female Khajiit called S’kasha were both exceptionally skilled with a bow. Brodas had spent most of his life as an archery instructor for the Legion and had picked up the habit of wearing heavy plate armours as a result. S’kasha may have been somewhat domesticated in comparison to her earlier life in the wilds of Elswyr, but there was nothing to fault with her ability. While all others in the guild were slowly knocked out of the competition the three of us continued to shoot to a growing chorus of cheers and gasping awe.

 Sighing softly, I released my grip on the bowstring and felt the microsecond where the twine slid across the rough pads on the tips of my forefingers. The thick callouses were permanently part of my body and were the only thing that stopped the raw wounds that resulted from firing bows. There was a faint whistling sound for a heartbeat, followed by the crunch of the solid impact hitting the target twenty metres to my front.

 Limited by our space and fuelled by a not too small amount of alcohol it had soon become apparent that the skill of us who remained were no longer challenged by the short distance. Unfortunately hemmed in the basement and without any other way to fire at longer distances, someone in the guild had created a different form of competition.

 A full deck of playing cards had been pinned to the targets arrayed at the end of the hall, and using nothing but our bows we were spearing them as Statustius stood next to the targets, shouting out the colour of the cards we had to hit. It was a challenge of not only accuracy but also of speed and reflexes. Not only did we have to hit the cards in the centre, but we also had to do so quicker than our other two competitors. The growing rivalry between us was only being fuelled by the increasing catcalls and hoots of amusement from those watching along the walls and upper level. All forty plus members of the guild stood with a dozen or more guests mixed in their numbers, including at least two armoured forms of the city guard. The guardsmen were part of the small contingent who had been tasked to ensure that the guild didn’t leave the chapterhouse for the duration of the house arrest.

 I winced in expectation as Statustius checked our latest hits, pulling each arrow out in turn as identifying the shooter by the tiny coloured ribbon attached to the shaft. Brodas and mine were lifted up together while S’kasha’s was pointing to the ground; a fact that left her cursing in her native tongue.

 “This one could do with some improvement.” She stated flatly, but purring out a laugh. Her arrow had hit the card but only on the edge, while Brodas and my own had hit dead centre.

 Glancing to my last surviving opponent I laughed as he winked, drawing out another arrow and running his fingers through the feather attached to the end. “It’s just you and me now Kaius. I bet you a bottle of Tamika’s 399 that I can’t split your next shot in a second after it lands.”

 I raised an eyebrow at that, trying to make out whether the short Bosmer was making a joke or being serious. Fully clad in plate armour that had taken far too many beatings for any self-respecting wood elf, it was hard to judge his expression as it and most of his face was hidden behind a thick sallet helm.

 “Make it a bottle of Cyrodillic Brandy for me and you’re on.” I replied, stringing my bow and readying my own arrow.

 Half hidden behind the helm all I could see was from his upper lip to a few centimetres below the jaw. Amusement twinkled in the dark depths of the eye slits while his mouth made a _bleh_ motion before breaking into a grin. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff.”

 “Better than that vinegar that you so love.”

 Statustius called out from down the end of the training hall, yelling the word ‘ _Red’_ as loud as he could. Hefting my bow and staring through my mind’s eye I picked one of the red-backed cards on a side furthest from me. Then, watching Brodas staring from the eyeslits of his helm, I quickly choose a different one and released the arrow a heartbeat later.

 The arrow impacted into the centre of the red card, slamming a full third of its length into the layers of packed straw. The short Bosmer merely grunted in the second that my arrow flew, the bow twitching in his hands as he too loosed his own a fraction of a second later.

 His arrow smashed into mine, splitting the shaft in an incredible example of the ability of his kind with bows. There was a stunned silence for seconds after the shot, broken only by my exclamation of _“fuck!”_.

 Lifting his helm to reveal his weather beaten features fully, the grin was impossible to remove. “Want to try again?”

 Not being able to do anything else than laugh I clapped him on the back to the sound of applause coming from the packed guildsmen who witnessed the shot.

 “Looks like I owe you a drink.” I said to him as we gripped our armoured forearms together and shook to his victory.

 “That you do.” He replied, still grinning with his triumph. “I know a nice little shop nearby with the wine on sale. We'll see whether your drinking abilities are any better than your shooting.”

 Turning away and looking at Viconia’s amused expression from where she sat against the wall, I clenched and unclenched my hands to work the stiffness out of my fingers. My use of a bow had been fading in the months since leaving the legion, but I was satisfied that my skill hadn’t degraded much.

 “Find that amusing, did you?”

 Smiling honestly, she held out a flagon recently filled with water. “I did actually. It’s always humorous watching you humbled by your betters.”

 “I don’t need any help making myself look like a fool.”

 “On that we can agree on. It’s one of your greatest skills.”

 Chuckling I sat down heavily and carefully unstrung my bow before starting to rub it down with tallow. Viconia had been maintaining her own equipment by rubbing oil into the inner layers of her chainmail while I had competed and it wasn’t long before Bodras had joined us as well.

 The growing wall of noise that filled the interior of the chapterhouse changed in volume and density, and to my enhanced hearing I could hear the bubble of quiet that was slowly making its way through the boisterous mercenaries and their guests. As it moved through and reached the bottom of the stairs to the basement I could immediately see that it was from a trio of individuals, dressed completely differently to the battered and rough Fighter’s Guild members in their various armours and clothing.

 “What the?” I murmured, placing the length of my bow down on a nearby table and staring at the trio as they were directed towards us by a handful individuals in the hall.

 Viconia and Brodas looked up at my mutterings and they too stared at the individuals making their way across the training room floor, ignoring the way that a handful of fighters had begun sparring with quarterstaffs in the centre. As the loud cracks of wood on wood and the slaps and accompanying yowls of pain from wood on flesh filled the air they found themselves standing before us.

 Dressed in finery and flowing silks that would’ve required us spending a significant portion of our accumulated wealth to purchase, the aged retainer leaned heavily on a cane hewed from wood from the jungle depths. Studded in precious gemstones and in a riot of colour, everything he wore spoke of power and authority.

 Standing by his sides were a pair of armoured soldiers that unfortunately I knew all too well by their uniforms. Dressed in the flowing white and yellow surcoats and clad in layers of chainmail and leather despite the heat there was no mistaking the heraldry of Castle Leyawiin and the Caro bloodline emblazoned on their chests and shields. For a moment I felt the grip of panic hold me tight, but if they were coming to arrest me they wouldn’t have sent so few, or an aging messenger to do so.

 “Master Desin, Miss DeVir?” the elderly man stated simply, looking over us intently. While older than anyone I had seen outside of Ashlander tribe elders, there was no glazing of the eyes or decay of the mind that usually accompanied such advanced years. He knew exactly who the two of us were, which our appearances and the fact I was fully clad in my armour made it ridiculously simple.

 “Yes…” I replied hesitantly, looking at the professional glares from the Castle Men-at-Arms as they sized us up instinctively.

 Carefully reaching into his flowing robes, the elderly gent withdrew a lavishly made scroll sealed with wax in a liver spotted hand. The signet ring clasped firmly around a skeletal finger announced him as one of the high advisors of the Count of Leyawiin, and there was more power and authority in the wizened figure than possibly the Legates themselves.

 Standing up to my shoulders, back hunched with the weight of the years he had lived and wearing his Lord's authority around him like a cloak he seemed to grow in stature as I rose respectively to my feet. Easily eighty years old, there was a high chance that he had served two generations of Counts in County Leyawiin, possibly even three.

 Taking the scroll from his outstretched hands with a nod of thanks, I cracked open the wax seal and began reading over the words within while Viconia looked over my shoulder at the elegant script.

 “By the grace of his Lordship; Count Marius Caro,” The ancient regent began, his voice perfectly modulated to reach through the hall and cease all forms of activities. “I extend the invitation to the Hero and Heroine of Kvatch to meet with the Count and Countess of County Leyawiin this afternoon. This day; the 7th of Morning Star, Year 434 of the 3rd Era.”

 Despite the trepidation building in my guts and confusion of the invitation, I bowed my head in respect to the Count's messenger. Strangely enough I felt a wave of relief wash through me as deep in my mind I still held the fear of being identified as the vampire responsible for the recent attack. The word on everyone’s lips since the night I got caught was almost talked about just as much as the repulsed daedric assault on the city.

 “Tell your Lord that we accept the invitation.” I replied, tapping my fist against my chest in respect. “Are we to assume that there is a specific time that we are expected?”

 The Count's messenger nodded. “My Lordship has arranged for you all to meet in the next hour. This scroll gives the authorisation to enter the Keep for your audience with the Count, and due to the continuing house arrest there is a troop of Men-at-Arms waiting outside to escort you to the castle.”

 My flash of apprehension was noticed and ignored by the messenger, and Viconia stood up beside me and took the scroll from my hands. “Now? But we don’t have any formal attire.”

 “Nothing overly formal will be required.” There was an amused twinkle in his eyes as he looked at our increasingly confused expressions. “The Count is not expecting you to arrive in silks and robes, but dressed as you are now; fully armed and armoured. Knowing the young master as I do; if you were to come to the castle dressed in clothing he would take it as an insult.”

 He bowed, lowering his already hunched shoulders towards the tiled floors. “I bid you two a good day. Please prepare yourselves quickly and present yourself and that scroll to the Men-at-Arms outside as soon as you can. It is never a good habit to leave a member of the Elder Council waiting.”

 Turning and making his way back through the chapterhouse he left Viconia and I looking at each other confused and slightly apprehensions

 Brodas leaned in over my shoulder and whistled appreciatively at the cursive writing on the scroll. “Looks like you have an adoring fan in the castle Kaius.” He said, slapping me on the back. “It’s not every day that the Count grants audiences...”

 “I guess so.” I replied, rolling the scroll up once more and glancing briefly at Viconia as she began shrugging on her daedroth scale armour. “What do you know of the Count?”

 Brodas puffed out his cheeks and blew out a long breath. “Other than the fact that he’s mad for all things to do with militaries and warfare , there’s not much to tell. He’s a count, as blue blooded as they come and somehow managed to get into an arranged marriage with Lady Valga of Chorrol a few years back.”

 “How ‘ _mad_ ’ is mad?”

 “Well, he spent a sizable portion of his family’s wealth a decade or so ago establishing the Order of the White Stallion. Built the whole fortress out there out of his own pocket and knighted a dozen or so mercenaries, adventurers and an even a few of his guard as the first knights. Everyone thought he was nuts or was going to send his entire linage broke but there’s no way that I’d mess with any of them these days.”

 “That effective, are they?”

 He laughed. “They charged into an Oblivion gate, slaughtered Akatosh-only-knows how many daedra and lost only two of their brothers. _In total._ You tell me…”

 There was a shrug that rattled his armoured plates and he frowned at the sound before rummaging under a plate with his hand. “Plus the banditry and insurgencies that used to be an issue from a few years ago are completely a thing of the past.”

 “He does sounds a little _vigh…_ ” muttered Viconia, strapping her breastplate across her chest.

 “If that means what I think it means.” Bodras glanced over to her. “Then yeah, he is a bit eccentric. He means well, and if anything I’m surprised that he has been able to hold back for this long with the Heroes of Kvatch staying in his city.”

 “Should we expect anything strange then?”

 Another shake of the head and he finally found whatever was making the noise in his plate mail, grunting with satisfaction and rolling his shoulder with an obvious lack of noise. “Nah. Probably get you out in front of his other bluebloods and give you a toast or the key to the city or something. A few years back he did the same for a few of us who had managed to clear a nest of swamp trolls.”

 Viconia finished dressing quickly enough, leaning over the chair and giving me the opportunity to look over the form-hugging curves of her chainmail chausses that pleasantly showed off her legs in a surprisingly attractive way. There was something about her fully dressed to kill that seemed to give me a healthy dose of desire.

 Quickly rubbing a polishing cloth over the metal plates of my armour I buffed off the extra layers of tallow and oils that blurred the metal somewhat. With a quick buffing, the silver etching of the vines working their way up my torso gleamed and flickered in the light. Every other metal plate was wiped over quickly, but it was far from a ceremonial piece. Other than the silver vines on my torso, there wasn’t a reflective coating anywhere on the surface.

 Leaving most of the collection of pouches, travellers pack and other accruements and taking only our primary weapons we travelled light. The gleaming hilts of Sunchild and the Light of Dawn poked from my hip and behind my head respectively, the dagger normally clasped to my chest being left in the chest in our room and my bow was sent up there as well by one of the guild runner boys. Dressed to war to attend a ceremony in the castle we were literally ready for anything up to and including a daedric portal opening within the city limits.

 The sound of bells reached our ears as we left the chapterhouse’s interior, the early afternoon being announced with the single sounding of each bell throughout the city. Waiting with the bored expressions shared by all soldiers throughout the Empire on such duties the half dozen Men-at-Arms stood idly, but straightening perceptibly as the commander identified us. Walking side by side, Viconia and I left the shadow of the chapterhouse, being escorted through the bustling streets with a file of Men-at-Arms flanking us and clearing as path with the clatter of boots and shouted orders to make way.

 It wasn’t difficult to remember how the castle had looked in the depths of the evening only a few nights previously. During the day the castle appeared regal and awe inspiring, draped in massive unfurled banners depicting the rearing white stallion of County Leyawiin and whitened pennants and banners flapping in the breeze from the very tops of the towers. Guards marched about the walls in twos and threes, and I wondered idly whether that was because of my recent detection or whether that was their routine during the day.

 Stepping across the lowered draw bridge and into the darkness of the gatehouse I fell a chill go up my spine despite the increasing heat of wearing my full armour in the Leyawiin sun. Returning to the castle, even during the daylight hours was enough for the claws of shame and self-loathing to sink deep into my consciousness until Viconia was giving me concerned glances.

 The courtyard was just as large as what I remembered but during the day the sun brought it out in all its glory. This far south where the touch of snow had never been felt, flowers bloomed in the several gardens and trees were lush and full of life. The cobblestones underfoot had been worn smooth from hundreds of years of feet tramping across them, and I wondered just how many had walked through the towering gatehouse since its construction.

 Upon entering the enormous expanse, we laid eyes on the groups of Men-at-Arms marching back and forth in the courtyard, obeying the snap of orders and war horns as their commanders drilled them relentlessly. In a combination of ceremonial and battle drills they marched back and forth, turning sharply and moving with a grace and professionalism that any Legion Centurion would have been proud of. The courtyard was immense, appearing somehow larger in the daylight and yet cramped with the sheer number of guards and citizens moving about it.

 To the left of the gatehouse in the northern section the squared walls of the city prison sat, squatting into the stones like a lumpy toad. Doubling as a podium for the Count to make public speeches and announcements and for executions and trials of criminals it contained not only platforms for speaking but an arrangement of stocks and the ominous arm of a gallows jutting from the stonework of the walls.

 A crowd had gathered around the platform, the dozens of individuals from throughout the city and from all walks of life huddling around in a mass of humanity. The undefinable cries and shouts of the crowd rolled and merged together into the background noise but the emotions fuelling the shouts were unmistakable. The raw, bitter taste of fear slithered across my tongue as potent as any elixir, making the vampire within me twitch with its own dark lust. Impossible to ignore, the undercurrent of bloodlust, hatred and anger that permeated the courtyard wormed its way into my mind.

 “What's happening over there?” I asked one of the nearby guards, slowing my pace and straining to see the source of the commotion.

 “Oh, that?” the guard turned and looked in the direction of the crowd with a shrug. “A few nights ago one of the castle guard was caught consorting with a Vampire.”

 “I heard that she had only been fed on...” Viconia said icily as she stared daggers into my skull, her immediate assumption making me feel even more nervous.

 Muttering under his breath, one of the other guards shrugged. “From what the guard who caught them in the act said, she wasn’t exactly resisting the fiend’s attentions.”

 “So what are they doing over there then?” I asked carefully, feeling my nervousness at the situation mixing with the anxiety of Viconia’s darkening mood.

 “They have her locked up in the stocks. If she’s infected and turns the sun will take care of her.”

 “And good riddance to the whore.” Another spat to a chorus of agreements.

 “And if she isn’t infected?”

 “Then she’ll stay in the stocks until the Count makes up his mind on what to do.”

 One of the surcoated guards cursed and motioned to the castle entrance a hundred metres away. “The Count should just grow a pair and kill her anyway. Just to be safe. Better that than leaving the vampire’s slut besmirching the County’s honour.”

 Unseen by the Men-at-Arms I felt my jaw twitch and the skin pull tight with my growing emotions. My shame had been building, as had my guilt but now anger was starting to pump its way through my veins. With a visible effort that Viconia noted I crushed the vampire deep inside with my will and before I realised what I was doing I had turned and started walking towards the crowd.

 “Sir?” the Men-at-Arms glanced amongst themselves, suddenly unsure of what to do and finally noticing the darkness of my expression. Without hesitation Viconia followed me and our armoured boots rang out against the cobblestones as we left our escorts milling in confusion. Their orders had been to merely to escort the two of us to the castle and after several moments the commander gestured at us and they broke into jogs to catch up.

 Wordlessly Viconia and I strode across the courtyard, once again escorted by the Men-at-Arms who were now all sporting expressions of nervousness and confusion at our actions. The crowds fear and loathing was like dirt across my skin, and despite my nature it was emotions that I shared with them. Their superstitious fear of the unknown left them to vent their rage and fear in the only way they knew how. Repeated cries for blood and murder ebbed and flowed through the packed masses, the very nature of humanity lending the mob psychological strength as their numbers grew to more than a hundred. Some were merely curious, intent on glimpsing with their own eyes a victim of a Vampire's attentions. Others were drawn out of righteous anger at what a vampire’s victim represented but most of the crowd were there to vent their fear on the only physical evidence of their unease.

 The crowd parted as I strode through it. Most made way to my armoured form and those that didn’t felt the not too gentle shove of my gloved fists in the spines and shoulders and I simply pushed through. Some turned to complain but the appearance of a hooded and cloaked stranger, fully armoured plated and wielding numerous implements of war stopped them in mid breath. Those who were riding the waves of anger and fear or who had consumed alcohol initially tried to stop me or protest, but Viconia’s and my shared expressions and hands dropping to the hilts of our blades convinced them of the folly of their actions.

 Raised over hip height, the platform was designed for where criminals would receive their various punishments in full view of the public. Everything from whippings to beheadings and hangings would be enacted here, and my vampiric senses could still smell the tang of months-old blood on the stretching rank and chopping block. The towering arm of where murderers would be hung loomed above me, blotting out the view of the sky with its promise of justice and lacking any rope at this time. Ignoring the protests of my escorts and the guards standing at the base of the platform, I shouldered my way through, pushing aside shields and glaring at anyone in my way as I clambered up onto the ancient wood.

 Half a dozen stocks were laid out in a row, leaving barely a metre between them and consisting of nothing more than the holed planks of wood for securing the heads and hands of the prisoners. Only one was currently in use and I felt the building rage and guilt at the sight. Stripped of her armour and wearing nothing more than rags usually granted to prisoners residing within the dungeons the pale form of the female guard I had bitten had been cruelly locked into place. She had been refused any form of treatment and I could see where my bite had been left to chafe and fester in the heat. Blood had congealed to her flesh as far down to her breasts and had even stained the wood locking her head into place. In a decision bordering on overkill, both wrists were also manacled into the wooden stock as well as the platform itself. No stool or chair had been provided for her, instead she had been forced to kneel painfully in a cruel hunched position usually reserved for rapists or child molesters.

 For a moment I stood there, fists clenching tight in my gloves and feeling my fingernails digging into my palms of my hands through the minotaur leather. The anger that was building in me was of such intensity that the last time I had given into such an emotion I had left the Lake Arrius Caverns strewn with gore.

 Stomping over to me from his position lounging in the shade, the brutish form of one of the prison wardens superimposed himself between me and the woman. A grin was slathered over his overweight face and for a moment all I could think of was that the only way one such as himself could become so slovenly was if he was helping himself to the prisoner’s meagre rations.

 “I'm sorry sir, but you are not permitted up here.” he said arrogantly, looking over my armour and equipment and trying to determine whether I was a noble or some other high-ranking official from my unusual appearance.

 “Let me pass.” I said softly, my voice no more than a threatening hiss that was tightening in rage at the woman’s treatment.

 “For your safety, I cannot let you go near her.” With a smug grin he pushed back on my shoulder roughly, deciding that I was some nobody that he had rank over. “She’s blood-cursed. Tainted by a vampire. She could turn any minute.”

 Men like this I had known in the legion, such as the commander that had been behind my decision to desert. Carefully… S _lowly_ I lowered my gaze to where his grubby paw gripped my shoulder and saw how the grease of his last meal had smeared into the pauldron and cloak.

 “Do you want to keep that hand?” the moment’s hesitation crept into his eyes as I reached out and burrowed my will into his quivering mind. With a bit too much force I stabbed into his fear, filling his soul with a supernatural dread that made him snatch the hand away as though my armour had been engulfed by a flame cloak spell.

 Ignoring the stammers from the corpulent warden I walked over to the shackled form of the guard and kneeled in front of her, seeing the bruising and swelling of her features under the pink layers of blisters from days of being staked in the sun. My skull was twisting and writhing under the skin, but to all who watched me in fear my features could have been carved from stone.

 The lightest of touches against her jaw caused her to moan with pain and delirium. By the way her lips were cracked and the heart fluttered in her chest she had even been denied food and water ever since my feeding, and I mentally tore myself in my guilt.

 For a moment her eyes fluttered open and she stared weakly into my own and I remembered the night where I had claimed her for my thirst. The depths of her eyes pulled at me and I froze with the terror of discovery as I knelt before her almost in penance. Expecting some form of recognition, I could do nothing but look into her eyes as she shuddered and began sobbing instead, begging to be released.

 By now the crowd had been pushing forward at the sight of my actions, the tiny line of guards and Men-at-Arms shoving back with their shields in the attempts to keep their numbers at bay. I was soon becoming the subject of the crowd’s hatred and anger, the various objects and missiles that they had brought with them to hurl at the stocked woman instead finding a target in my hunched and cloaked form. As the impacts of the poorly thrown objects rattled around me, Viconia finally managed to join me on top of the platform and as I felt something hard and rocky bounce off my armoured shoulder I could hear her spitting curses in Drowish. In a single graceful move she twisted, scooped up the rock from where it had landed and threw it into the face of the original owner with a surprised cry of pain barking out from the press.

 Wood crunched as I dug Sunchild into the hinge and levered it open. Not bothering to seek or even ask for the key of the manacles or the stock itself I simply snapped the iron links to release her from the wooden embrace. Losing the one thing that was keeping her upright she slithered from the stock, her body giving out with the pain and exhaustion of kneeling for the better part of three days. Carefully I caught her in my arms before she hit the rough wood, wrapping my arms around her abused body and barely feeling her weight as I stood. There were few raised surfaces on the platform other than the terrible form of a stretching rack long since fallen to disuse and ill repair and I couldn’t bring myself to put her on such an implement of pain and torture. Instead I moved a short distance away from the stocks before laying her flat on the wooden platform itself, stretching her out gently as I looked over her tortured body.

 Viconia stepped between me and the increasingly angry crowd as the boos and shouts of anger increased. At the threat of mob violence grew and the guard began implementing more brutal methods to shove the crowd back the number of thrown objects also increased. A chunk of some unidentifiable fruit exploded on a ward Viconia threw up at the last second, and the suddenly fury of the Drow seemed to stab fear into the hearts of all who bore witness to it.

 “The next person who throws something will get more than a potato in return.” She roared, the ward flickering away into nothingness as she held up a hand wreathed in lightning and containing sinister intent. The crowd suddenly went silent, only broken but the muted whispering and the barely audible curses as they realised that she was deadly serious.

 “Whatever you are doing _abbil_ , you best do it quickly…” She muttered, looking about the crowd at the growing waves of anger that were building.

 The warden rushed over to us, his sense of duty and the threat of being torn apart by a mob overcoming his unnatural fear of me and the witch-eyed drow standing in front of them. Trembling, the ripples of terror coursed through his considerable mass as he went to stop me or pull me away from the semi-conscious woman laying on her side on the wood. After a moment’s hesitation his hand fell to his side as though he was going to draw the knobbed mace in the metal loop at his hip but the tip of Viconia’s blade suddenly pressed into the softness of his throat.

 “Not the smartest idea there _Jaluk_.” She hissed at him, and his eyes wandered between us and the other guards for help as I simply ignored him.

 A fearful hush fell over the crowd as I tilted her head gently in my hands, the flowing blue light pouring from the palms of my hands caressing her blistered and sunburnt flesh clear for all to see. The intent in my actions were clear and the sudden instinctual understanding began pricking itself into the minds of the crowd.

 “Vampires are beasts that mostly hunt in packs.” I called out loud enough for everyone to hear. “But there come times when a single individual, either starving or sickly is forced to hunt prey outside its usual territory. I believe that this particular case is just that; a single one of these predators out of desperation was forced into the city limits to feed.”

 My waterskin found its way into my hand and I pulled the cork stopper from the neck with my teeth. Very gently I washed away the dried blood on her neck and chest, pouring a tiny measure of the liquid at a time between her lips. A glove was pulled off as I held her, running my bare, calloused fingers up the visible vein where I had sunk my fangs. The neck wound was horrible to look at under the circumstances, the greenish-white fluids of infection mixing with the brackish water from the waterskin. I knew that I had not spread my curse to the woman but if left untreated a normal infection could end her life even more effectively than if I had simply drained her dry.

 What rose the beast to just under the surface of my subconscious and flesh was the treatment she had received at the hands of the other Men-at-Arms and guards. She had been beaten, whipped with drill canes and I suspected she had been abused during the nights in the stock. At that point I could have slaughtered all in my path but it was only the softest of touches of Viconia’s hand on my shoulder that curbed the beast’s urgings.

 “She's not infected, and will not become one of their kind.” I called out to the crowd, and the sudden surge of unease floated through them and silenced most.

 “Just how can you be certain?!” cried out one of the nameless faces, fear filling every syllable. “Just what makes you the expert on the beasts?”

 Ignoring the way that my eye twitched in building rage I stood, turning away from the prone form of the woman and pulling down my cloak, hood, coif and gorget to reveal the pink, puckered bite marks in my own throat. The scars may have faded in the months since my transformation, but the appearance of them in my flesh had the desired effect on the crowd.

 “Many months ago, I was bitten by one the creatures. Since then I have hunted these foul creatures and culled all that I can find. I have entered their lairs, burnt them in their holes and slain dozens of the foul crypt-worms.” I paused for a moment, looking over the sea of expectant eyes before giving them the best smile I could despite my churning emotions. “As you can see despite being bitten I am still here, and the sun is indeed shining.”

 The nervous ripple of laughter at my comment rolled from them, and my short speech seemed to put their minds at ease. The whispered murmurs of our names swirled through the crowd as the recognition spread, and so too did the awe and realisation at our actions. The reputation of the Heroes of Kvatch, and our titles of Champions of Anvil were now well known. Slowly spreading just as surely was the more recent tale of my actions in Glenvar county; and the way that two dozen blackened skulls of vampires now adorned the gatehouse of Castle Glenvar. The word that I had also retrieved the Light of Dawn was also reaching the ears of every town, village and city in hushed whispers of awe, spreading through the land like spilled oil on a canvass. While the story of Maegalla and the enchanted blade were one of the hundreds of forgotten tales in Tamriel, it was finding renewed life from the tongues of bards, poets and travelling minstrels.

 Such were our reputations, and the threat of Viconia’s unsheathed blade that a majority of the crowd slowly began to disperse, trusting in our actions that the threat of vampirism was removed from their city. Most of the citizens slowly turned and began making their way back to the city and their lives, and other than a handful of the more fanatical or fearful most were already leaving to the relief of the outnumbered Men-at-Arms.

 “You can let him go now Viconia.” I said as I turned around, and I could almost feel the sigh of relief from the Prison Warden as Viconia moved the point of her sword away from his throat.

 Fumbling with one of the few pouches left on my belt, I drew out a small measure of dried Mandrake root and popped it into my mouth. The bitter taste swirled over my tongue as I chewed, crushing it into a slurry before scooping up it out with the tips of my fingers. Looming over my shoulder and reeking of terror, the corpulent warden hovered like an ogre, watching as I smeared and pressed the pulp into the fang punctures in the woman’s throat.

 “She needs food, water, and healing.” The hiss snaked out of my mouth and I could taste the man’s fear of me on my tongue over the bitter herb. There was no fear that my saliva would spread the taint, not with the disease killing properties of the root pressing into them.

 “She is to be cared for, and not treated any further in this disgraceful manner.” I loomed over the man, glaring down on him as his jowls trembled in his increasing terror. “You will be responsible for ensuring that she is taken to the healers, and if I hear or believe that she has been treated in any manner that displeases me I will rip your putrid guts out and choke you to death with them.”

 The pressed finger stabbing him in the flab of his chest was almost enough for him to lose control of his bodily functions as I wormed my will through the depths of his mind. I knew that he would do what I had commanded, the control that I had over him would give him no other choice and quickly he turned, gesturing and ordering a pair of the other prison guards to carry her to the apothecaries and chapel healers. The patron divine of Leyawiin may have been Zenithar with the enormous cathedral built in his name; but like all cities and large towns there would be a smaller chapel to Mara within the walls.

 Stammering an overeager reply and bowing as deeply as his protruding stomach let him he scurried away from me and the fire that burned within my eyes. As a statue I watched the warden and his two selected guards carefully pick up her unconscious body and lay her on a stretcher, and only when they had carried her off the platform in the direction of the main gate did I too jump down and allow our escorts to take up positions again.

 Viconia briefly ran her gloved fingers down my arm in an extremely awkward gesture of affection, something that she was not used to doing in the slightest. “I hope you will explain all of that later.” She whispered as our escorts began marching alongside us in the direction of the castle. The six of them were sharing glances of concern between themselves at my actions and the way that Viconia and I had managed to disperse a crowd with a combination of words and the threat of overwhelming violence.

 My breath caught in my throat and I trembled with barely restrained emotions. “Repentance.” I replied, not able to meet the scrutiny of her eyes.

 The doors to the castle were open, and surprisingly inviting for such a construction. Built for war and defence in mind I had always assumed that all castles were imposing and terrible, but even before we had made it a couple of paces inside I was shocked at the sight that awaited us. The inside of the Keep was lovingly furnished and filled with the collections that had taken over twelve generations of Counts to acquire. Banners and Battle Standards hung from the walls, depicting the long and honourable service of both the City Guard, the Castle Men-at-Arms and the various Imperial Legions and their casta’s that had served in the region since their founding. Rows upon rows of viewing cases lined the walls under the hanging banners within the entry hall, each filled with artefacts and wondrous treasures that made Viconia’s and my collection appear little more than a handful of trinkets. Over fifty metres wide and a ceiling that reached high above our heads and almost lost to shadow, the hall was an impressive sight. I couldn’t help but notice that it had originally been designed this way on purpose, not as a museum or trophy room, but to create an open space to allow the castle defenders to crush any attackers in sheer numbers as they were funnelled through the front doors.

 Flickering lights of dozens of lanterns and lit torches failed to remove the gloom, but cast everything and everyone in a flickering half-light that only seemed to enhance the gleaming edges and dozens of reflective surfaces scattered about. Resplendent in their chainmail and silken surcoats, stern faced guards were stationed alongside every door and especially valuable artefact to protect from the inevitable thieves and robbers.

 Our escorts left us shortly within the hall, informing us that we would be called shortly to present ourselves before the Count in the throne room. With time to kill I decided to wander slightly, looking over some of the priceless treasures and artefacts with curious eyes. Weapons of every type imaginable, armour from every race and age throughout Cyrodiil and Tamriel and jewels, trophies and gleaming Ayleid artefacts filled viewing cases from one end of the entrance to the other. I couldn't help but wonder that if this was the standard of the treasures that they left out in the open, then what would they have filling the Castle Vaults?

 High above my head enormous banners from military units hung from the high ceilings. A mixture of shapes, designs and colours gently floated in the still castle air, representing every race and culture in Tamriel and even some from beyond. There was even an ancient and crumbling Akavir banner placed on the wall inside a glass case. Humming with enchantments struggling against the march of time I could still see the blood stain where it had been cut from the owner’s back. Many other the other banners were battle honours from the Imperial Legions that had been stationed in Leyawiin or that had defended Leyawiin during several wars through the ages. Some were very obviously captured standards from Elsweyr and Blackmarsh; a few so old and faded that all their finery was only mere decades away from dust. Right in the centre of the chamber hung the enormous banner depicting the Leyawiin emblem; the rearing white stallion, circled in gold weave and with a longsword striking through the background as the symbol of Leyawiin’s military strength. I noticed with some thought how the banner, which was at least ten meters long and five metres wide must've taken several years to make and consisted of materials that would've been worth enough to outfit an entire Imperial Legion of soldiers for a year.

 Looking about the room, I thought over everything that I had seen and knew about Leyawiin and the Count. It was a rich city, and the Caro Line had grown rich from generations of rule. Normally such a show of abundant wealth was prideful and showed nothing more than corruption within the highest ranks of society especially in such cases as Bravil and the Terentius Family. The Counts of Leyawiin had a long history of kindness and fairness in their rule, even as far as traditionally reduced taxes. This wealth arraying the walls of their castle was the result of their inspiring leadership; not from claiming the hard efforts of those under their rule.

 A young courtier appeared at the top of the short flight of stairs in the centre of the hall opposite the entry. Dressed in the finest of silks and clothing he looked almost swallowed up under the weight of cloth. In such tropical heat it would have been impossible for the young man to have lasted any more than half an hour outside in the sun, and only by remaining in the cool stone interior of the caste was he able to hide from heatstroke.

 “Master Desin, Miss DeVir? Follow me please.”

 Side by side Viconia and I made our way across the lush carpet that covered the stonework from view. Thick and expensive, it matched the rest of the castle’s finery despite the way it had almost been worn smooth and threadbare by countless feet over the years since its creation. From the entry hall we made our way up the short flight of stairs, and I could feel the nervous sweat beading across my body and trickling down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature and humidity outside. Never comfortable with authority outside of the ranks within the Legion, I drew Viconia’s confused expression as I laughed softly to myself. I would charge daedra and throw myself into Oblivion, hunt minotaurs and Vampires with only the slightest trepidation but the idea of leading others or meeting someone such as a Count left me trembling and hands shaking.

 The throne room beckoned, and I blanched at the fact how there were dozens of individuals lining the great hall chatting amongst themselves and generally waiting in place. After believing that we were only just going to be meeting the Count and Countess and a few of their closest cronies, the fact that it appeared that every noble and person with authority in the entire County awaited us did not ease my nervousness.

 With a start I found myself concerned with the level of attention and the protocols of meeting such individuals, trying desperately to remember what little that I had been taught in the Legion. Another thought punched its way into my mind and I looked over to Viconia as the courtier motioned for us to wait for a moment while he moved ahead.

 “Please don’t kill anyone in there.” I mumbled softly to her, and she turned her head with yellow eyes filled with amusement.

 “Don’t worry yourself about me _Mrannd'ssinss._ ” The seductive chuckle that curled from her throat sent a shiver of pleasure up my spine in direct competition to the nervous goosepimples I had under my armour. “Judging by the way you are sweating and shaking in your boots it’s you that we have to worry about. Calm your mind. This is something that is surprisingly familiar to me, even with the reduced likelihood of someone being stabbed or poisoned by the day’s end.”

 Forcing in a deep breath before carefully blowing it out again I struggle to find a measure of calm at the sight of dozens of powerful men and women of the Empire. The way Viconia held herself and carefully ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it over her shoulders and folded coif and hood spoke of a level of experience that initially surprised me. it was difficult to remember that this beautiful dark elf who had travelled by my side for over four months could be considered nobility in any sense of the term. Her upbringing as the DeVir priestess and tutelage under her mother had gifted her a knowledge and the experience of navigating the social circles of the rich and powerful that I doubted I would ever have. Her very nature and race also ensured that no matter the duplicity and treacherous nature of politics, there was little on the surface that would ever match the overwhelming experience and skill of the Drow.

 There was a moment where the courtier looked about the room and the growing hush of expectation at his presence, before he cleared his throat softly and called out with a voice that echoed through the room.

 “May I present master Kaius Desin and miss Viconia DeVir; Heroes of Kvatch, Champions of Anvil, Warders of the Fighter’s Guild.”

 Steeling myself as though marching to meet an enemy with blade drawn I stepped forward with Viconia close beside. Our footsteps were muffled in the layers of carpet under our boots, leaving nothing more than the faint sounds of jingling chainmail, the swish of our cloaks and the slapping of our scabbards against our armoured thighs. Upon entering the hall, I felt my mouth go dry as the sight of the dozens of people in the room, all separated from us and leaving a path cleared by a pair of parallel ranks of Men-at-Arms. These particular soldiers must have been the Count’s bodyguards, as they stood perfectly in order and without the slightest blemish or mote of dust on their gleaming armours. Halberds gripped tight in mailed fists, they stared forward at their opposite on the other side of the path and barely even blinking.

 To the sound of a light, building applause we continued on, trying to keep my own anxiousness at bay and forcing myself not to flinch as thuds echoed as we passed each pair of guards in turn. With impressive precision each straightened their halberds against their chests, slamming the fist gripping the wooden hafts against their breastplates against their hearts while somehow retaining the appearance of statues.

 In a physical representation of the Cyrodiilic government, the arrayed groups of nobles and leaders clustered together in groups around us. From the Count down, his authority flowed to the dozen or so Barons arrayed about the room, and they in turn were surrounded by a collection of other minor lords and other leaders of their regions. Aediles, burgomasters, and patricians represented each of the tiny hamlets, villages, and towns scattered about the County, and several of them would be under the rule of a single Baron who ruled and guided his tiny region at the behest of the Count. While somewhat unwieldy it had been a system set in place and maintained for the better part of two thousand years and had so far allowed the Empire to form and claim power over Tamriel.

 In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before cracks in the system would begin to form with the death of the Emperor and his sons. Each member in the room who was a Baron or equivalent and higher held seats in the Elder Council, and as such their voices held incredible power to those seeking to claim the Ruby Throne.

 While filled with the rich and powerful, the power of the minor nobility utterly paled in comparison to the Count rising to his feet from his throne. The power that this single man wielded was matched only by the Legates of the Legion, the provincial governors such as Skyrim’s High King, and the position of the Emperor itself. The fate of a portion of Cyrodiil was in his hands and those of his descendants; for good or for ill.

 Count Marius Caro rose to his feet in front of his throne enthusiastically clapping his own hands together in such a way that the more sycophantic of the minor nobility joined in. There was a look of pleasure in his eyes as he gazed upon Viconia and I making our way towards the raised platform, and with sweeps of his arms he encouraged the applause to build until it drowned out all other sounds.

 Balding, slowly wasting into fat and at least twice my own age he wore his robes strangely enough like a second skin. Literally born into his role he commanded the entire room with his presence, despite the way how I suddenly found a smirk growing on my face at what he wore. The rich expensive robes were also pressed hard into his chest by a breastplate of such immaculate design that I wondered whether the entire thing would crumple by merely rapping my knuckles against it. Either designed by himself or someone of his court who had never seen or experienced battle it was ridiculously useless but for those bluebloods around us I supposed that it went a way to impressing such individuals. A gladius was clasped to his side, the hilt studded with such jewellery that I wondered whether it even been drawn at all, let alone in anger.

 His wife; Alessia Caro hailed from far to the north and County Chorrol. The daughter of the Countess of Chorrol, their marriage had been arranged to strengthen the two counties and I wondered if there was anything in common between the two of them. While the Count was easily twice my age, the Countess was several years my junior by a noticeable margin. He stood and had a look of pleasure at our presence in his castle and she sat as the perfect image of civility and nobility with her eyes churning with weary resignation and boredom. Viconia and I drew her attention for a moment as it did everyone’s in the weeks since Anvil but it was nothing more than fleeting. Feigned interest covered her porcelain features before she returned to wandering the room with her eyes, lightly tapping the back of her hand with a pair of silken gloved fingers.

 Viconia and I came to a halt at the base of the steps leading up to the thrones. The trio of stairs were wide and flat, but still managed to lift the Count’s head almost a metre above my own from our positions on the lower level. As one, and with all eyes firmly on us, we bowed together.

 My fist thumped into my chest as I bent over at the waist, lowering my eyes and gazing into the first step a metre in front of my toes. Viconia somehow managed to turn a bow into something elegant and complex, gesturing with a wave of her hand before placing her swordarm into the small of her back. Knowing what I did about the Drow there was probably some significance of having her hand as far from a blade when greeting someone while simultaneously protecting their spine.

 “Rise,” he was soft spoken for a man of his position, strangely quiet and yet his voice carried through the room with the sheer level of his authority. “Please rise. Heroes of your renown shouldn't bend a knee to anyone, even one such as myself.”

 The cloak of gold threaded silks brushed down each stair as he walked from his throne. Apparently not one for remaining aloof and untouchable in his position in society, he walked until standing a pace in front of us, arms wide and welcoming and a smile of pure enjoyment.

 To my surprise the Count gripped me in an enormous hug that made me feel as though I was being consumed by the volume and richness of his clothing. In a combination of his age and his natural height, he only just reached my nose, and I felt incredibly awkward in the embrace. Judging by the looks of some of his guards and his wife, they too had concerns, albeit of a different nature.

 “For weeks the tales of your exploits have reached our ears, and for once the gossips finally managed to do the stories justice.” He pulled away from the embrace, gripping my pauldron in a surprisingly strong grip and giving me an appraising glance. “You have the look of a man who would spit in the eye of Molag Bal if given half the chance.”

 Patting me on the shoulder with a hand covered in signet rings he turned and focussed his attention upon Viconia. There was a look of childish awe that flowed over his face as he took in her beauty, the lust in his eyes evident to both Viconia and I.

 “The rumours of your beauty have been greatly underestimated.” He said simply, bowing his head ever so slightly and bringing the back of her hand to his lips as though she was a Countess herself. “Without seeing you in person it was difficult to understand how someone of such incredible beauty could be clad in an adventurer’s cloth.”

 Completely ignoring the daggers in Viconia’s eyes that foretold great pain and suffering at the unwanted touch he instead straightened and smiled. “How many times have you got this one out of trouble?”

 Viconia followed the Count’s gesture and showed a rare moment of humour. “Almost as much as the _wael_ gets himself into it.”

 The swell of amusement ripped through the crowd and by now everyone in the room began to slightly relax. Except for the stone-faced guards who seemed to be made of steel.

 Behind his back the Countess was internally seething with rage at her husband’s actions and the looks that he had at Viconia’s incredible beauty. While she was highly attractive in the way that women of noble birth seemed to be, there were few that were capable of matching Viconia. I wasn’t the only one who could see the Countess’s rising jealousy, Viconia too had identified it and noticeably began to toy with her by shifting slightly and accentuating the way her armour clung to her natural curves. There was still a darkness in her eyes though, as though she wished nothing more than to draw Dragonbane and castrate the Count for the mere act of kissing the back of her hand.

 “Having such esteemed adventurers and may I say, _heroes_ in my home is almost unprecedented. Many great warriors and men and women of renown have graced these walls with their presence but there have been none in centuries that can hold a candle to your accomplishments. You have the look of god-killers about you both, and there are hundreds within the Empire and Cyrodiil whose lives are in your debt.”

 Casting his gaze about the room and the faces of the County’s nobility he raised his voice until it rung from the walls. “The deeds of these two have been heard throughout the Empire. From Vvardenfell to Highrock, the Summerset Isles to the depths of Blackmarsh there are few who have not heard of their exploits. From entering Oblivion not once, but _twice_ before the walls of Kvatch and Anvil you succeeded in something that took the _entire Order of the White Stallion_ to accomplish. With little more than a handful of city guards and sell-swords you saved Anvil from destruction, and that was only after you closed a Gate completely alone! From fighting alongside the Legion at Kvatch, hunting the greatest of Minotaurs seen in decades in Skingrad and cleansing County Glenvar of its vampiric menace you will have the bards and poets singing your praises for years to come!”

 Clapping his hands together he once again began the rolling crescendo of applause from the gathered nobility and I shared a glance with Viconia that shared our mutual unease at such acclaim. Once again we had found ourselves being honoured by some of the most powerful individuals in the Empire, and we were both obviously wondering where this would lead us.

 Slowly the applause died away once more, and Count Caro turned and gestured to one of the several armoured figures standing behind the expressionless line of Men-at-Arms. The armoured individual stepped through the silent ranks, softly clanking as his gleaming plate armour shifted around his muscled bulk.

 “May I introduce Sir Gailer Ramauld; Knight Commander of the Order of the White Stallion.”

 A softer applause echoed as the knight stepped forward and out of the mass of nobility. There were a couple of other such individuals in the room of the more militaristic nobles and Barons, but Sir Ramauld was no blueblood. A couple of fingers taller than me in height he matched me in muscle kilogram for kilogram, body fit and powerful from years of training and fighting. Duelling scars and the jagged wounds of claws marked his face from an ancient injury and I could clearly see where a blade had gashed his cheek in a strip of white that underlined his right eye. An overwhelming confidence in his abilities infused every step as he moved over to us, stepping lightly as only an experienced swordsman could before thumping his fist into his chest with a clank.

 “My greetings to you both.” He rumbled, accent thick and alluding to the frozen north of Skyrim. “It is always a pleasure meeting such individuals of skill and bravery.”

 Bowing his head slightly he stepped back and clasped his hand in front, revealing a barrel chest that seemed constrained by the layers of chainmail, plate armour and surcoat. The grin on Count Caro’s face could not be wiped away in the presence of such individuals as ourselves but was completely oblivious to the way that the three of us were mentally sizing up each other.

 “Twelve years ago, with Sir Ramauld's assistance I founded the chivalrous Order of the White Stallion. Its ranks have been filled with the warriors known for their skill at arms, their bravery in battle, and most importantly; compassion, mercy and the quality of their deeds.”

 With a sudden sinking feeling that I couldn’t identify I found myself staring at the beaming Count. “For some weeks now I have listened intently at every tale of your adventures, hearing how you have come from nothing, appearing from nowhere and embarking on quests throughout the bounds of Cyrodiil. From the stories of your battles against the daedra to wandering the world helping all in your path, every week seems to bring further tales of your victories.”

 “So, you can expect the excitement that I felt when I heard that you had arrived in my city.” he flashed the two of us a bigger grin that reminded me of an excitable toddler and I struggled not to laugh. “Two of the greatest heroes of the Third Era walking the streets of Leyawiin? It was an opportunity that I had hoped for but never truly expected.”

 Slowly he walked about the base of the stairs, hands clasped together and suddenly sombre and almost melancholic. “Fighting, while in the service of the common good is noble and is the highest of callings. I do however find that brawling; drunken or otherwise is morally reprehensible and I cannot abide such in my city. It came somewhat as a surprise when I had to order the house arrest of the Blackwood Company and the Fighters Guild after the events in the Marketplace a few days ago. Such individuals such as yourselves to be mixed up in a such a scuffle was difficult to believe, but it amazed me when my guard commander informed me of the nature of the brawl.”

 He held up his hands to the assembled nobles, all his fingers outstretched but his thumbs pressed into his palms. “Eight Blackwood Fighters, all armed and armoured in their magnificent plate accosted these two as they explored the sights of our great city. For reasons I still struggle to understand those veteran fighters started a fight with these two individuals before us and soon realised the folly of their actions. Not dressed in their magnificent armours but in simple clothing, they disabled and defeated eight armoured, veteran mercenaries with nothing more than their bare hands!”

 There was another ripple of surprise and astonishment at the Count’s words from the crowd. The details of the fight had been the talk of the town until my unsuccessful feeding the night after the brawl, but most had obviously assumed that it was a fight between equal combatants. The elite of Leyawiin were hanging onto his every word now, listening intently and studying us ever more closely as we wilted under the attention.

 “However,” He said, raising his hand and signalling for silence once more. “any one of us will know from the tales of your exploits that your fighting prowess is beyond question.”

 Carefully he turned and began to pace around the base of the stairs, hand lifted under his chin thoughtfully as he spoke. “I knew of your abilities long before you arrived within Leyawiin, but something that I have listened for other than your skill at arms, is your nobility and your compassion for others. As is to be expected, this is always difficult to ascertain from tales and rumours and while there has been considerable evidence of your fame it is difficult to judge the nature of an individual without meeting in person.”

 “Anyone can fight,” he continued, gesturing to the room and everyone within it. “and some can fight well. The rarest of all individuals can fight both well, and with honour and chivalry. Between the stories and the knowledge that you both are members of the Fighter’s Guild initially led me to believe that you were both nothing more than sellswords interested in little more than fortune and glory.”

 The smile increased even further, and he turned and looked between the two of us, pulling a sheet of parchment from within the depths of his robes and holding it for us to see. “With my brief communiques with Vilena Donton and the other heads of the Fighter’s Guild in Cyrodiil, I have learned much about these individuals standing before us. Numerous times I had learned these two have put their lives on the line, undertaking contracts that most within the guild would never consider doing. The example of the Minotaurs of county Skingrad is easily the most well-known of their momentous successes, but it was the smaller stories that also interested me. Time and time again in the letters from the Anvil, Cheydinall and Chorrol guild heads contained stories of these two undertaking even the tiniest of contracts and sometimes even forgoing their rightful pay from those who struggled in poverty.”

 The expression from Viconia directed at me was easy to understand. She was remembering the times where I had paid for the contracts out of our own pockets upon their completion. To her it was an insufferable weakness and possibly even a personal insult. If we were to undertake any form of activity or job, especially one that had any form of personal peril then she expected that we were to be paid accordingly.

 “Your latest exploits in County Glenvar are what have me truly interested though. Seeking out and slaying a coven of vampires in their lair is something only the greatest of warriors would consider. Not only did these two successfully slaughter over a dozen of the foul beasts and remove their taint from the land, but they also retrieved a priceless relic from their clutches.”

 Turning, he looked over the both of us, glancing between the hilts of the swords at our sides. “The sword.” he asked softy. “May we see it?”

 Slowly nodding, I reached up and pulled at the leather straps where I had attached the scabbarded Light of Dawn down the length of my spine. Carefully, and with the most grace I could muster I let it slide out from under my cloak, before holding its black and silver length reverently in the palms of my hands.

 The scabbard alone was unique and the collective hush of surprise that filled the room as everyone could see that it was no regular blade. Holding it there horizontally, with the curve of the Scabbard rising in a slight arc in my grip there was barely a whisper to be heard.

 “The Light of Dawn.” My announcement even drew the attentions of the guards, eyes glancing in their steel nasal helms in the vain attempt of seeing the weapon while unable to turn their heads.

 The look of childlike awe on the Count’s face returned, and I watched as he reached out with a trembling hand. With his gaze upon the blade and my hands open to allow him to grasp it, I was somewhat surprised when he pulled his fingers away a few short centimetres from the hilt. Somewhat sorrowful he chose not to touch the ancient blade, instead giving me a grim smile. “My Grandfather told me stories of the Vampire Hunter Maegalla and the legend of this sword. I always believed that they were nothing more than children’s’ tales. A weapon forged from the very stuff of sunlight and bane of the undead.”

 The silence that followed lasted for several moments as they gazed at a sight that they could tell their children for years to come. Artefacts such as the Light of Dawn were impossibly rare; perhaps even more so than Daedric Artefacts. Carefully I placed it back along my spine, pulling the leather straps tight and feeling a strange trepidation come over me at the expression on the Count’s face.

 “In this past hour, these two have continued their actions of honour and compassion. As you are all undoubtedly aware, three nights ago this city played host to the most terrible creatures of the night. One of my own guards became prey for a vampire, was bitten and even accused of willingly consorting with the foul creature.”

 The collective gasp of horror and the rolling level of repulsion hit me in the gut and I struggled not to show the guilt that I felt. Viconia continued staring at me, although her gaze had softened somewhat into something almost bordering on concern.

 “The poor girl was obviously wounded in the attack and weakened by the creature’s bite. Since the attack I have struggled to decide her fate and determine whether she was infected or not.” A steeled edge entered his voice and I quailed at the sight of the sudden anger building in the Count. “It appears as though that decision has already been made for me…”

 The guilt was replaced with a sudden unease at what my actions with the wounded guard signified. I had taken the law into my own hands, and countermanded the orders of the most powerful man in the County.

 “Paying no heed to the laws of the County or my authority; Kaius and Viconia braved the crowds of concerned citizens, ignored the commands of my own personal guard, and released her from the stocks.”

 The growing mumble of concern throughout the room reached my ears and where I had been merely nervous before I was now growing steadily more terrified. This was not a fight that Viconia and I could win with blades.

 “Kaius Desin and Viconia DeVir. You both flouted my authority, and that of my subordinates. I am within my right to order your arrest, and I’ve hung people for less.”

 The silence that followed his statement and in the face of his simmering anger I felt my eye twitch, chewing on my lip nervously. Trying to ignore the way that Viconia had stiffened and her hand began to subtly drawing magicka into herself I nodded to the Count. “Yes my Lord.”

 “Every action breeds consequences, and even for individuals such as yourselves you have to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.”

 Fully expecting his guards to fall upon us at the simplest gesture or command, I was completely unprepared for the hulking form of Sir Ramauld stepping forward and looking me dead in the eyes. “The Count and I would like to induct you into the ranks of the Order of the White Stallion.”

 Viconia stopped her twitching and I felt my jaw drop in amazement. “ _What?_ ”

 “You have both proved yourselves worthy of becoming knights, and the Order itself would be honoured to have you among us.” He continued, looking over to his liege lord who was smiling once again.

 “Any individual who does what is right no matter the potential outcome has the honour and the compassion for a Knight of the White Stallion.” With a gesture he encompassed the armoured form of Sir Ramauld and the perfectly made white Surcoat with the Order’s heraldry proudly displayed. “You are some of the greatest warriors to have been known in the Third Era, and your actions this day and the months previous have shown a depth of compassion and humility not expected of simple sellswords or adventurers. I created the order to allow individuals such as yourselves to unite together and in doing so become something greater as a whole.”

 For several seconds I tried to speak but no words came out as I struggled to think of what to say. The very thought of me, a deserter from the Legion becoming a Knight was unthinkable, impossible and yet here I was standing before a Knight Commander, and a Count offering me something that had I never considered.

 “But, our membership with the Fighters-”

 Sir Ramauld cut me off with a raised hand, the thick leather gloves covering his hands under the plate gauntlets. “It has already been taken care of. The Count and I have been in contact with Vilena Donton and the other commanders in the Guild and they have given their blessing.”

 “Has such a thing ever been done before?” Viconia breathed, the nagging sense of pressure in the back of my head fading as she dispelled the swelling magical power she had been summoning.

 “Indeed it has.” Count Caro was almost laughing now. “While rare, there are at least three members of the Fighters Guild in the Order’s ranks. Sir Ramauld, before he entered my service had been a member of the Companions.”

 Looking at the hulking Nord in the full heraldic plate I could believe it. In Vvardenfell the Companions from Skyrim were well known and were sometimes considered to be the superiors of the Fighter’s Guilds in Morrowind and Cyrodiil. They were far more honourable at least with their Nordic heritage, if a lot stubborner.

 “When the Count sent the word that he was raising a Knightly Order outside of Highrock there was not much interest.” Sir Ramauld admitted. “I was the first to come to pledge my sword after the Harbinger at the time gave his blessing.

 “So we will have to remain in Leyawiin?”

 There was a shake of the head from both men. “No.” the Count replied as Sir Ramauld was about to. “The Knights were founded here and the Lodge is here, but I do not expect them to remain here in my lands when their services are called for throughout the Empire.”

 Sir Ramauld nodded and smiled, his age being shown through the lines marking his face and the scars that crossed them. “At any one time a third of our number are abroad, travelling the lands as Knights-Errant. This is an honour; the greatest of which that we can bestow on worthy individuals. We are not expecting you to swear allegiance from the Fighters Guild or anyone else for that matter. We are unlike the other Knightly Orders who fight for their Counties or Provinces and while we owe a debt to Leyawiin and the Caro lineage we are our own free agents. If you agree to join, neither of you will be expected to do anything more than continue with your deeds. You will however receive the full support of the Order, can call upon support of the Order where required and no matter where you are in the Empire. Obviously you will be expected to return the favour if called upon and if the Order rides to war, you will be expected to fill your place in the ranks.”

I was overwhelmed, feeling the weight of the stares of the dozens of nobility and the burning blue gaze from the veteran Knight. The whole situation felt as though it was slipping out of my fingers and all I could do was nod dumbly at a complete loss of words.

 Viconia, while just as shocked as what I was had her expression turn into calculating and the grin that creased her face spoke volumes. She was already weighing the benefits and had found them much to her liking. “I accept the offer.” She said a second before I nodded.

 Sir Ramauld broke out in a grin that was matched by the Count’s. Together they stood before us, Count Caro in front of me, and Sir Ramauld standing in a wall of Nordic muscle and metal by his side.

 “Your sword if you please.” Said Count Caro, motioning for Sunchild grasped at my side. Very gently I drew it out of its sheath and for a second I struggled to part with the blade, staring into my reflection on its mirrored surface. The Count grasped it confidently and stared into the exquisite forging of the Ayleid blade in wonder, wielding the sword with surprising experience and ability that was at odds with his appearance.

 “Kaius Desin and Viconia DeVir.” He began, looking both of us in the eyes. “Kneel.”

 I lowered myself to one knee, my arms resting by my sides as Count Caro lightly pressed Sunchild flat on my right shoulder.

 “Be without fear in the face of evil,” Sir Ramauld began, his deep baritone voice rumbling out through the hall and I struggled to remain calm with force of the emotions running through my mind. “Be righteous in your pursuit for justice and uphold the tenants of the Nine Divines. Speak the truth, protect the innocent, and serve the Empire.”

 “This is your oath.” Count Caro intoned, tapping Sunchild against one shoulder, then the other before drawing its edge across my face. “May this be the last blow you receive without retaliation.”

 The razored edge of Sunchild bit deep, and I forced my face into a mask of calm as I felt it cut through my skin and scar my right cheek. Trickling down the side of my face and dripping onto my armour and folded coif and hood my blood stained my face into a visage of pain and determination. Glancing at Sir Ramauld I saw how he briefly nodded in respect, seeing the old scar where he too had sworn the same oath.

 “I swear it.” I replied, bowing my head and feeling my blood slowly pump from the open wound.

 Count Caro handed back Sunchild, the wetness of blood still gleaming on its edge as he turned to Viconia and received Dragonbane to conduct the same ceremony. She too kneeled, and within the depths of her yellowed eyes I could see the calculating nature of her kind in the depths of her soul. For a moment I felt concern at the how the two of us were gaining such an honour through what could be described as deception. Between my cursed form and her very nature as a Drow we were both far from being the upstanding and pure Knights they expected or believed us to be.

 “I swear it.” She replied at the end of the speech, underlining it with a muttered oath in her native tongue. The cut in her cheek barely even marred her features and seemed to merge with the handful of scars on her face. Appearing as a glistening trail of rubies that left me salivating, the droplets fell to the floor and added to the other bloodstains at the base of the stairs.

 “Then arise as Knights!” Count Caro proclaimed to the sudden deafening roars from the crowd of nobles. “Arise as Knights of the White Stallion!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just over 200,000 words in 2 months, and other than needing desperate rewrites in a few chapters Deserter is now complete. If you have made it this far then you have my thanks and I hope you enjoyed the story so far. 
> 
> Kaius and Viconia's tale will continue in Knight...


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